Layers of Blue
by AngelCallie
Summary: Too many things lay between them, too many layers of blue. My go at the 100 Royai fic prompts, because the world needs another set. Rated T just in case . . .
1. 088 Given name

Disclaimer: I own no alchemists, and most certainly none who are full or metallic. I wish I did.

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088 Given Name

It was such a pretty name. Riza. It felt soft on his tongue and it tasted so sweet, and not only because it was forbidden. He wanted to say it over and over but he had to cover it up, hide it and all his feelings behind shifting fake names. Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant. They were masks that hid her from him, walls that blocked him off from her, merciless rules that kept him away from the one thing he wanted more than the presidency.

That would be the first rule to go, he thought as he glanced over to where she sat at her desk, bathed in the late morning sunshine. If it took everything he had, he would get to the top if only to be able to say her name.

_Then_ he would make miniskirts compulsory.


	2. 083 Crowd

Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal. It may, however, own me.

A/N - This one turned out quite silly. I'm not totally happy with it, but I thought it might amuse.

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**083. Crowd**

Riza felt more than a little tired of pushing her way through the hordes of people flooding the streets. She was not exactly comfortable in crowds and she had been bumped into and pushed aside more times than she could count as she attempted to make her way back toward her apartment from the clogged shopping center. She wished that she could pull out the small gun she had concealed in her boot and fire a few rounds into the air just to clear herself a path. She had to keep reminding herself that it would be wrong, but every time someone stepped on her toes her fingers got closer to the trigger.

"Bloody holiday," she cursed, extracting herself from the flow to take a seat on nearby bench so that she could check that her parcel had not been damaged in the crush.

"Quite a crowd today," said a voice from behind her and she felt a hand run through her loose blonde hair. Without even thinking, she pulled out her gun and spun to point it at the speaker.

"Easy, Hawkeye," said Roy, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

She breathed an almost imperceptible sigh of relief and made room for him to sit beside her on the bench. She tried not to take note of how good he looked in his civilian clothes as he leaned back and crossed one lazy leg over the other.

"What brings you out here on a day like this?" he asked. "Didn't you know the streets would be packed?"

"I ran out of food for Black Hayate," she answered, casually drawing her bag close to her, trying to hide her parcel.

"Really?" he asked, eyeing the package. _Damn him, _she though. He knew her too well, knew all her little movements.

"Yes," she answered, trying to keep on her professional face despite the glaringly obvious fact that neither of them were in uniform. She felt exposed in her knee-length green skirt and white blouse. She caught his eyes wandering over bare legs and she wanted to hide them.

"I don't believe you." He sat still a moment, looking at her with suspicious amusement. Then, like a shot, his hands reached out and grabbed the package from her unsuspecting hands.

"Hey, give that back!" She reached out and grabbed for the bag but he held it just beyond her reach. She tried to ignore his mischievous smiling eyes as she leaned across him trying to reach the bag. In her desperation to retrieve that which she could absolutely _not _let him see, she didn't notice his free hand sneaking up her back and into her hair until it turned her face toward his and pulled her into a kiss.

She lingered for a moment, their mouths touching, before realizing what had happened and jumping back away from him, her face turning bright red. She was caught between the horror of him opening the package and seeing what was inside and the fear of falling into his grasp again and not having the willpower to pull herself away.

He continued to smile like the cat who ate the canary, seeing her eyes dart confusedly as they avoided him. He toyed with the handles of the bag, mercilessly teasing her with the possibility of revealing her secrets, but he relented as he saw her agitation mounting and handed her back the bag.

She grabbed it like a starving man grabs at a loaf of bread and held it tight against her chest. She felt as if all her good sense had run away from her the moment he had shown up, and she inwardly cursed him for the embarrassment he had caused her. Still, that kiss . . .

She shored herself up, trying to regain her composure as she sat up straight as a rod and looked out ahead of her, trying to block him out of her peripheral vision. Then, with a closed fist, she swung at him and landed a blow to his stomach.

"Good lord, Hawkeye, what was that for?" he asked, half laughing as he doubled over.

"For," she started, "for kissing me in front of this crowd." As she said the word, she was reminded of the feel of his lips against hers, the smell of his skin, and she blushed. The blush only served to make her angrier. She stood and started to walk away.

She heard him jump to his feet behind her, grunting a little from the lingering pain in his abdomen and she allowed herself a small smile. But then he grabbed her retreating elbow and spun her around, pressing his lips to hers again and all her anger dropped away and she was left defenseless against him.

"I don't care if the whole world sees," he whispered, his soft breath brushing her skin. He stole one more quick kiss then retreated, losing himself in the crowd before his lieutenant regained the presence of mind to pull her gun on him.

He had gotten what he came for, and he wandered into the crowd with a Cheshire cat's smile. And, when he had bent over her shoulder, he had caught a glimpse the little box of black and red underwear she had been so desperate to hide from him. She really would kill him if she ever found that out.


	3. 033 A Walk

Disclaimer: No ownses FMA. D:

A/N: This one got away from me a bit. I didn't really intend to go for the angst!factor, but there it is.

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033. A Walk

The sun was shining, birds were singing, and the cool breeze of early spring was blowing softly down the streets of East City, cleaning the soggy, dirty feel of the melting end of winter out of the air. All was right with the world, so it seemed. All but one thing.

Roy Mustang was bored.

It was one of his rare days off and, for some reason, not having to go into the office was making him feel very useless. He sat at his kitchen table, head resting heavily on his palm, glaring out at the white light of springtime and grumbling at his own inability to entertain himself.

He thought about going in to the office anyway, but he knew that he would be no less bored there. He had some idea of the stack of paperwork waiting for him and he decided he would rather be bored alone than bored with a stack of papers to go through. Besides, only Havoc, Falman and Breda would be there – he had given Fuery and Hawkeye the day off as well, considering all had been quiet on the Eastern front for a few weeks now. No, the thought of going in to the office was even duller than the prospect of sitting all day alone at his table and glaring as the sun made its full journey across the sky.

But he had to do something. He was not accustomed to sitting around uselessly, so he stood up from the table, grabbed a plain black jacket from his closet and went out the door. He would just go for a walk. With no real destination, but with the object of, at the very least, distracting him from boredom.

He left the complex and walked straight out on to Main Street, making his way down toward the commercial district. He had had no real reason to turn in that direction other than whim, but before long he caught sight of something that made him glad he had followed that random impulse.

On the other side of the street and some way down, he spotted her. She was leaning her back against a lamp post just outside of a small park and watching Hayate chase a moth across the short grass, which had only recently been liberated from snow. Even from that distance he could see the soft smile on her lips and the look of supreme contentment in her eyes. It was something he didn't see often, and his heart ached to think how many worries she carried that normally kept that expression far from her face. He stopped and watched her for a moment, wishing with all his heart that she could always be so at peace.

He wanted to be near her. He wanted to touch her face and see that look in her eyes as she returned his gaze. He wanted to be with her always and shield her from all of the things that clouded those beautiful mahogany eyes with trouble and turned the corners of her mouth down in a frown. He wanted to pull her close and breathe in the smell of her hair and protect her from everything wicked. She would tell him she didn't need protecting and show him that all-too-rare smile that made him feel simultaneously like the king of the world and her humble subject.

He wanted her but she was exactly what he couldn't have.

He wanted to hear her say his _name _not his rank. He wanted to wake up beside her and run his hand through her long blonde hair and feel her warm skin against his palms.

But he couldn't.

He turned around, feeling angry with himself for a reason he could not pinpoint. If he walked on toward her, Hayate would probably notice him and then she would see him standing there, looking like the pathetic creature that he was and he couldn't bear that right now. And, like so many other days, in so many other situations, he walked away from her. He walked away, knowing full well that he would find her beside him again, just as she ever was. She was by his side always.

And just out of reach.

But 'just out of reach' was better than nothing. And so he walked on, walked away, and hated himself for the coward that he was.


	4. 012 Proof

Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist does not belong to me. I just want to play with a few of the characters. I'll put them back when I'm done, I promise!

012. Proof

When he saw her fall, everything else had gone out of his mind. He ran.

Her eyes were open but they looked hollow, as if something had flown away when the bullet had hit her. Her pupils were large and black, almost swallowing her warm brown irises, and she wasn't blinking.

"No no no no no," he repeated senselessly, falling on his knees beside her and pulling her up off the cold ground and into his arms. The blood flowing from the exit wound in her back soaked into his gloves, making him as useless as the rain could. It was spreading, turning her jacket black with its escaping heat.

"Hawkeye!" he shouted, his voice shrieking into registers to which it was not accustomed. He shook her and screamed at her to wake up. He shifted her, freeing one hand and with fumbling, trembling fingers he searched her neck for a pulse, for some sign. For proof that she had not left him behind. "Riza, please," he whispered as his clumsy fingers left streaks of smudged blood on her neck.

She gasped and squeezed her eyes shut, her teeth gritting with pain. Her fingers curled tightly around his arm, nails involuntarily digging into his skin as she fought against the pull of death.

"Colonel," she breathed, her face pale from pain and blood loss.

_Oh, thank god, _he thought, and called for a medic. He smoothed her blond hair away from her face and kept his eyes locked with hers, as if guarding that proof of life, until the medic came and took her off the battlefield and he knew she would be safe.


	5. 041 Coat

Disclaimer: Only borrowing! Do not own.

A/N : This was supposed to be funnier but it turned out all angsty in the end. Clingy!Roy gives me the warm and fuzzies, though. I'll have to try harder next time to keep things light! Ahahaha, In Vino Veritas, as they say.

041. Coat

Riza had already changed into her pajamas and washed her face when the phone rang. It was quite late and the seductive call of her warm, comfortable bed was trying to convince her to ignore the ringing, but she thought better of it. Only her higher-ups in the military had this number so, despite the hour, she figured she had better get it in case something important was happening. She padded barefoot into her darkened kitchen and picked up the receiver.

"Hello?"

"Lieutenant?" slurred the voice on the other end of the line. "'Zat you, Hawkeye?"

"Colonel?" she said, though she had already recognized the sound of her superior's voice despite his drunkenness.

"Yeah, s'me Hawkeye. 'sRoy, I mean Colonel Mustang." He laughed at himself, his voice hitting a strange, almost manic pitch as he did. Riza rolled her eyes and cursed inwardly, knowing what would be coming next. "D'you think you could come pick me up? I am walking not so good."

She could almost hear him drunkenly shaking his head as he spoke. "All right, tell me where you are."

He breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief and gave her the name of a bar that was a fair distance away from the barracks where the Colonel's quarters were. She did her best to get him off the phone quickly then moved to make her preparations.

First she shed her pajama pants, replacing them with far less comfortable but rather more proper khakis that she had found lying in her bottom drawer. She hadn't worn them in who knew how long and they weren't the best fit, but she pulled them on quickly, hoping that it wouldn't be long before she returned home to the comfort of her cotton pajamas. She had no patience to deal with attempting to put her hair back up so she left it loose and pulled her coat on over the camisole she wore to bed, buttoning it up to cover any bare skin.

Black Hayate got up from his place at the end of her bed and followed her to the door where she slipped on a pair of sandals. He looked up at her quizzically, wondering why she was leaving the house at such a strange time.

"Stay, Hayate," she said, bending down to pat him on the head. "Hopefully I'll be back soon."

She sighed heavily as she made her way down to the lot where the car was parked. Of all the things she could be doing right now, picking up her intoxicated commanding officer from a bar on the other side of town was at the bottom of the list. She pulled her coat in tight around her neck to keep out the chill of the cold, clear night.

She drove half way across the city to the bar the Colonel had named and found him sitting on the curb, head hanging low and arms draped heavily over his knees. She hoped he hadn't been sick. She pulled the car over beside him and got out.

"Colonel?" she said, walking over to him. "I brought the car."

"Is that you, Lieutenant?" he said, lifting his head and squinting into the yellow light of the street lamp to try to make out her face.

"Yes, sir, it's Lieutenant Hawkeye."

"You know, you're my favorite lieutenant," he said, the weight of all the alcohol he had consumed heavy on his words. He reeked of scotch. "Prolly my favorite ever."

"That's very nice to hear, sir," she answered evenly. She knelt down beside him. "Can you get into the car?"

"Yeah." He attempted to stand and Riza moved to support him. He wobbled to his feet and took a few lurching steps toward the car. She stepped forward to open the door to the back seat for him but he shook his head and opened the door to the front passenger side and plopped himself down there instead. She closed the door behind him and walked back around the car and got in.

"I'm really sorry, Riz – Lieutenant," he hicced as she turned the car on and began to head back toward the barracks. "I'm sorry. I just . . . I needed you to come here. I needed you," he repeated with all the profundity of one who had ingested too much liquor.

"It's all right, sir," she said, not turning to look at him as she drove. He was scooting closer to her and she cursed herself for not making sure he was wearing a seatbelt and hoped that his legs didn't knock into the emergency brake. She let out a small, startled gasp as she felt his arm snake around her waist and the weight of his head come to rest on her shoulder. She felt her cheeks grow hot as he pulled himself closer to her, the warmth of his body against hers and his own musky smell, underneath that of alcohol, nearly overwhelming her senses. She continued to drive.

"You know how much I . . . depend on you," he said wearily into her shoulder.

"Yes, sir," she answered, not really knowing what else to say.

"You don't need me at all, do you?" His voice shook as he said it and Riza thought she could feel a warm dampness seeping through her jacket sleeve.

_Oh, good lord, _she thought. She did not have the mental stamina to deal with a depressed drunk right now, with sleep deprivation beginning to gnaw at her mind.

"Don't say that, Colonel," she answered. "Of course I need you. You are my commanding officer."

"No, no, no," he said, pulling at her waist harder with both arms now twined around her midsection. But he fell silent for a time and seemed content having now pulled himself so close against her that his nose was touching her ear. He chuckled and his breath went under her collar and sent shivers down her spine.

"Your hair smells nice," he mumbled, nuzzling even closer.

After a while, he seemed to have fallen asleep. His grip on her loosened slightly and his breathing became an even rhythm against her skin. Unfortunately, not long after this occurred they reached the barracks and Hawkeye had to attempt to extricate herself from his grip.

He grumbled loudly as she tried to pull away, clutching more tightly to her waist and the fabric of her coat.

"Come on, Colonel, you're home." She peeled his fingers off of her and stood, leaving him lying face down on the front seat of the car. "I'll help you to your quarters, sir."

"Mmmkay." He reached out and took her hand as he climbed out of the car then draped himself over her shoulders as she guided him along the sidewalk toward his quarters.

"I'm sorry," he muttered again, and Riza felt soft lips against her neck. She tried to ignore the electric feeling of that feather-light pressure and she moved quickly toward his door.

"Sir," she said, beginning to feel a little dizzy. "Your key."

"I have a key?" he said blearily and took a step away from her to rummage through his pockets. After a few minutes of searching he located a key and pressed it into the lock. But he fumbled about and could not get the key to turn until finally she stepped in, pushing his fingers away and deftly turning the key herself and pushing open the door.

She helped him into the darkened apartment, his weight leaning heavily on her tired shoulders. They crossed the small living area and into the bedroom. The icy moon shone in through the window and lit most of the room.

"Can you manage from here, sir?" she asked, beginning to feel rather more than awkward.

"Thank you, Riza," he breathed, wrapping his arms around her and burying his face in her neck.

"Please, sir," she begged, pressing her hands against his chest. "I think you should get some rest."

He backed away a step and stared into her eyes very earnestly, swaying only slightly from his state of inebriation. She felt her breath catch as he moved one soft hand to touch her cheek, the light of the moon illuminating his dark eyes as they gazed into hers.

"Riza, I . . . I love you." And before she knew what was happening his lips were pressing hungrily against hers, his greedy tongue seeking entry. She felt her own hands, moving of their own accord, running through his raven-black hair as he bent her backwards with the force of his embrace. But when his searching hands began to work their way up under her shirt, she gasped and jumped away.

For a moment he looked bereft, as if something precious had been stolen from him. Then he looked away and stumbled toward his bed. "Riza, Riza, Riza," he repeated, holding his head in his hands. "I'm sorry." She was never really sure exactly what he was apologizing for.

She left the room and walked straight out of the apartment and into the night. The cold air against her bare neck – when had her coat come undone? – woke her a little, and she touched her fingers to her lips. Walking back toward her own quarters on the other side of the complex, she wondered if he would even remember this in the morning.


	6. 042 Day Off

Disclaimer: Roy and Riza are not mine, but they're so pretty I had to play with them!

A/N: I don't love how this one came out. It's very meh to me, but I couldn't really figure out what it was missing. But the idea of Roy trying to look after her was too adorable not to use. Besides, considering my last chapter, I'd say it's his turn!

Oh, and thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far! You are all so lovely! Reviews are what make me want to keep writing!

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042. Day Off

Lieutenant Hawkeye _never _took a day off. Not once in all the years Roy had known her has she ever called in sick, so when the phone had rung that morning and he had heard her weak, hoarse voice on the other end, he started to worry.

It stewed in him all day as he irritably flipped through papers and stared pointedly at the empty desk before him where his second in command should be. All five of the men in the office felt it, as if the room itself was off balance because the blonde lieutenant had not come in. Roy could hear Fuery and Havoc whispering, could see Falman glancing expectantly at the door as if she would walk in, could see Breda leaning almost imperceptibly toward the empty desk beside him.

Needless to say, the men got comparatively little done that day with their usual task master absent and the day crawled on at a snail's pace. To Roy it felt as if the stubborn hands on the clock slowed almost to a stop as he watched them, waiting for the hours to pass until finally he gave in. About two hours before his normal time of departure, he stood up from his chair and swept up his jacket and made for the door.

"I have a meeting across town," he said as he left the room, but his subordinates all knew better.

It was a short walk from the office to Hawkeye's quarters and he covered the distance quickly with long nervous strides. When he knocked on the door he heard Hayate bark – just once – and then nothing. After a few moments, his anxiety grew and just as he was about to try to melt the lock the door opened just a bit and he could see her through the crack. She was very pale with dark circles under her eyes and a bathrobe pulled tightly around her slim body.

"Colonel?" A small, shaking hand moved to her throat and pulled the robe in closer.

"I came to check up on you," he said, for once not trying to mask the concern in his voice. "It's very unusual for you to call in sick, so I wanted to make sure you're all right."

"Oh," was her only answer as she stared blankly at him.

"Is there anything I can get for you?" he asked, noticing as she gripped the doorknob for support.

"No, thank you, sir," she said and tried to recede behind the door. He stuck his foot in the gap before she could close it, though. He knew that, even if there was something she needed, she would never ask for it. She wanted to be strong and self-sufficient, even when she was ill but the thought of her all alone in her apartment suffering was rather more than he could bear. Her clouded brown eyes grew wide as he pushed the door open, and his concern for her grew when he felt no resistance coming from her. She just clutched at the folds of robe at her throat and stared as if she was lost.

"All right," he said, assessing small room. Nothing in her spartan apartment was out of place, even in illness, except perhaps Riza herself, who still stood near the door looking confused.

He knew he was no good at being a nurse-maid, but he had to do something for her. She looked so strangely helpless standing there before him. He had not seen her look so small in a very long time.

"Have you eaten anything today?"

"No," she said dully, finally moving away from the door to sit heavily on one of the chairs in the living area.

"Well, we should remedy that."

She seemed almost to melt into the chair and Roy noticed as she leaned back and folded her arms in around herself, that she was shivering. He took a step toward her and, not totally sure what exactly he was doing, placed his bare palm on her forehead. It was damp with sweat and very hot. He pushed her hair back out of her face and the very fact that she didn't protest or even try to move away from his touch was enough to tell him how out of it she was.

"Okay, Hawkeye, why don't you go and take a shower, I think it'll make you feel better. And I'll make you some soup."

She looked at him, dazed, as if unsure what he had just said. In the end, he had had to take her in to the bathroom and hand her a towel. She merely let herself be guided by him, not protesting at the hand on the small of her back that propelled her forward. He knew her fever must be very high to make her so docile, but he really had no idea what to do in a situation like this, so he just did what he thought was best. The shower probably would make her feel a little better, he reasoned, and soup was always a good guess for someone who was sick.

He went into the kitchen and opened up a few cabinets until, mercifully, he found a few cans of chicken soup hidden away beside a bag of flour. He wondered idly what exactly Hawkeye might do with flour as he dug a can opener out of her utensil drawer. The thought of her baking something brought a silly grin to his face.

Hayate came into the kitchen at the sound of the can opener and looked up at Roy with his puppy eyes, as if to ask him what was the matter with his mommy.

"She'll be all right, Hayate," said Roy, patting the little dog on the head reassuringly. "I'm gonna take care of her for you." The little dog almost seemed to smile as he leaned into Roy's hand.

After a few minutes, Roy heard the shower turn off. The apartment was small enough for him to also be able to hear her as she moved around in the bedroom that adjoined the bathroom. He had thought about going into her drawers to find some pajamas for her to wear, but he figured that was a danger zone of sorts, and definitely something he would have to pay for later, so he had decided against it. He poured hot soup into a bowl and waited for a few minutes until he thought it might be safe.

"Hawkeye?" he finally called, knocking on the bedroom door with the hand not holding the tray on which he had placed the bowl of soup.

"Yes?" came her uncertain reply.

"Can I come in?"

A pause. "Yes."

Slowly he pushed the door open and saw her sitting on the floor beside her dresser. She had managed to put on a pair of pajama pants and a tee shirt and Roy tried not to let his eyes be attracted to the strip of pale skin left bare between the bottom hem of the shirt and the top of the pants.

"What are you doing down there?" he asked, setting the tray down on her bedside table and then moving quickly to kneel beside her.

"I . . .got tired. My legs feel weak." Her hair, still soaking wet, hung limply around her face as she brought one hand up to touch her own forehead. He grabbed the towel she had discarded on the floor beside her and dried her hair a bit.

"Did the shower make you feel any better?" he asked.

"A little. But it was so hot."

"All right, come here." Without another though, he scooped her up, one arm under the bend in her knees and one around her back. She felt so light in his arms and when her own arms wrapped around his neck he felt suddenly very protective of her. He set her down on the bed and pulled the covers up over her.

"Here now, do you think you can try to eat a bit?"

She nodded docilely and accepted the tray he placed in front of her. With slow-moving hands she took the spoon and began eating.

"Hayate needs to go out," she said, as if suddenly remembering it. She looked as if she was trying to figure out how to get out from under the tray but Roy placed a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

"I'll take him," he said. "You just sit here and eat your soup. That's an order, Lieutenant." He smiled down at her and she smiled back and easily surrendered.

He took Black Hayate once around the block and waited for him to do his business before returning to Riza's apartment. She had eaten about half the bowl of soup and was now slouched down on the pillows, her face flushed and her eyes closed.

"Hawkeye?" he whispered, not wanting to wake her if she had fallen asleep. "Riza?"

"Mmmhmm," she mumbled by way of an answer.

"Is there anything else you need?"

She was silent and he assumed she had drifted off. He picked up the tray and put it back on her bedside table. He pulled the covers up around her shoulders and then bent down again to feel her forehead. It seemed a little cooler than before, or at least he hoped so. Brushing a few half-dry strands of blond hair out of her face, he allowed himself a moment to appreciate how beautiful she was, even at a time like this. With damp hair and feverish skin she was still gorgeous, but what took him aback was how fragile she looked with her little hands curled up on the pillow beside her face like a child. He let his hand graze her hot cheek affectionately, something he would never have been able to do if she had been awake.

"Roy," she mumbled, and one of her hands moved to take his and clasp it, bringing it down on the pillow beside her. She made a pleased sound and smiled in her sleep and he wondered what she was dreaming.

Unwilling to take his hand away from hers, he sat down in the chair beside her bed. He had been planning to leave, having made sure that she was not on death's door and done what he could to make her comfortable, but he reckoned he could stay here a while longer, just to see if she needed anything when she woke up.


	7. 051 Embracing from the Back

Disclaimer: They don't belong to me :(

051. Embracing from the Back

He was like fire. His every action burned like the sun. And when his arms wrapped around her, drawing her scarred, marked back into the warmth of his chest, surrounding her in the heat of his skin she felt as if he burned her up from the inside. Hot kisses like flames seared her neck, her cheek, the soft sensitive spot behind her ear. Hands like wildfire blazed over her cool skin leaving sunburns everywhere they touched, burning down walls and defenses until she was completely at his mercy.

He could destroy her if he wanted, could easily burn her to nothing. But she always stayed, as if transfixed by the fire of his purpose. She gave him everything, never knowing when his intensity would finally burn her to ash. And even if the flames did consume her, she would die grateful for their heat.


	8. 044 Hair

Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N: I like the first half, but the second half just seems lame to me. I wasn't really sure where I was going so I just wandered until I found an ending. Not my favorite of this collection.

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044. Hair

Roy did not get to see Riza very much outside of work. Part of the reason for that was that they both worked so hard that they had very little time off to socialize, and part of it was because he didn't fully trust himself. If she wasn't wearing those layers of blue fabric, the cloth barrier that reminded him that she was supposed to be off limits, he could find very little reason not to be closer to her than he was. There was no sign to tell him not to touch her and it was much too easy to ignore the fact that he shouldn't.

But somehow, today he had ended up at a bar with both her and Havoc after hours, and all three had seen fit to change into more casual clothes. She was wearing a red sleeveless blouse, unbuttoned just far enough for him so see the pale white skin of her chest, and a black skirt that ended just above her knees, leaving her long, well-shaped legs bare where they bent demurely under her bar stool. Her hair, set free of the clip she wore when in uniform, flowed down over her shoulders and contrasted stunningly against her red shirt like spun gold.

But he could take little pleasure in this rare vision of her femininity. His fist tightened around the glass of scotch on the bar before him as a man, a stranger to him, sidled up next to Riza and began to strike up a conversation. He rested his elbows on the bar and leaned in towards her, smiling almost hungrily as his eyes roamed over her body in such a way that made Roy want to burn him so he could never set eyes on her again.

"Can I buy you a drink?" he asked. She merely held up her half-finished glass in answer. "Well that's almost gone." He called the bartender over and ordered her a second drink. Roy clenched his teeth. He tried to tell himself it was none of his business who his first lieutenant flirted with, but it was of little use. He shouldn't care any more about a man hitting on Riza than he did about the fact that Jean was at the other end of the bar trying to get a large-bosomed blond to give him the time of day, but the truth was that he did. It drove him insane that this greasy excuse for a man was inching ever closer to her, his predatory eyes tracing over all her curves.

"You have the most beautiful hair I've ever seen," he said, and his left hand wandered across the small distance between them and his fingers ran lightly through a soft blonde strand stopping just short of brushing against the red fabric of her shirt.

"Is that so?" she said, a slight coyness in her voice that made Roy want to tear his hair out as his heart sped.

"Absolutely," the man purred, taking her lack of rejecting him to be as good as an invitation. He began toying with the strand, wrapping it lightly around his finger, all the while moving in closer. She had turned her face away but a very slight and becoming blush had spread across her cheeks, and the other man could see it almost as well as Roy himself could. It made him want to scream.

"Mmm," he hummed, moving his face in so close to hers that his nose touched her hair. "And it smells so sweet." He laid three small but confident kisses on the side of her face, making a trail from her ear to the corner of her mouth.

That was it. Whether it was his business or not, Roy felt he had to interfere or his head would light on fire. He rummaged with frantic rage through his pockets to find the glove he _knew_ he had stashed somewhere just in case.

But Riza turned her face away and put one slim, strong hand against the chest of the amorous stranger, halting his progress. Her eyes were closed and her expression calm.

"I'm sorry," she said flatly. "I'm just not interested."

This seemed to frustrate him and, cheeks flushed with alcohol and anger he grabbed her wrist and yanked her up off the stool. "I'll tell you when you're not interested."

But Hawkeye was too fast for her would-be lover and, though he had one hand clasped around her right wrist and the other had grabbed her waist and dragged her bodily toward him, she held in her left hand a small black gun pointed directly at his heart.

"As I said," she continued calmly as she stared up at him with her imperturbable brown eyes, "I'm not interested." He glanced down at the gun and immediately let her go and backed away, hands in the air. "Much better." She lowered the gun and he fled, hiding himself in the crowd.

She slipped the gun back into concealment before she sat down again, but even now Roy could not see where she had hidden its holster. Was the little clutch purse she carried even big enough to hold that weapon?

"This place is much filthier than I remember," she said coolly as she brushed imaginary lint off of her skirt.

Roy didn't know how to answer that. He had found his flintcloth glove too late, but he hadn't been needed after all. He felt a little emasculated, but he supposed that was not really anything new with Hawkeye around. He smiled a little grimly. She was continually amazing him with her strength and confidence and grace. She was so capable on her own.

Just then, Havoc landed face-first on the bar, drunken tears streaming down his face.

"I thought it was love!" he wailed.

"Struck out again, Havoc?" said Riza, a slight smile curling at the corners of her lips.

"I'm going home!" the blond man bawled and stumbled off in the direction of the bathrooms.

"We should probably help him, sir," said Hawkeye. "I don't think he knows the way out of the bar much less the way back to the barracks."

"Too true," said Roy. Together they rounded up Havoc and headed for the door. Roy was pleased to be the one leaving the bar with Riza, even if they were carrying a miserable Havoc between them. Roy was only upset at having to leave the bar without at least singeing the man who had dared lay a hand on his first lieutenant.

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A/N: Reviews are love! Even though this ending is lame . . .


	9. 066 The Pounding of a Heart

**Disclaimer: I wish I owned FMA, but alas no.**

**A/N: I don't love how this turned out. I had intended something different, but it came out as COMPLETE FLUFF. Oh, and I got Riza a bit drunk . . . :3**

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**066. The Pounding of a Heart**

Roy had been a little surprised that she had actually allowed him to walk her home. Usually she was so self-sufficient and unwilling to accept his assistance. He was glad that she had this time though. She didn't seem drunk, but she had had enough to make him worry about letting her head home alone.

She was walking beside him, her low heels clicking regularly against the concrete sidewalk. Her hands were in her pockets and her head held straight – her posture was always perfect – and there was an inexplicable smile on her lips. He wanted to ask her what she was smiling about, but he was a little unwilling to break the comfortable silence.

She, for once, was not.

"It feels good," she said, closing her eyes for a moment as she continued to walk forward. Her blond hair was streaming over the collar of her jacket.

"What does?" he asked, trying to memorize the peaceful joyous expression on her face.

"Mmm, night air." She breathed deep and stretched her arms out in front of her, fingers slightly pink from the cold. Her cheeks were a little pink as well. She laughed, a sound so close to a giggle that for a moment Roy wondered if he really was walking beside Riza Hawkeye and not someone who just looked like her. She broke into a run, passing under the pale street lights as her rare, musical laugh bounced off the brick walls of the buildings that surrounded them. Not really knowing what else to do, Roy quickened his pace to follow her. Like a little girl, she caught her hand on one of the lamp posts and spun around it, her little purse dangling from her outstretched hand.

"You seem pretty happy," he said, feeling the stupidness of his phrase even as it came out of his mouth and simultaneously wondering if she might be drunker than he had originally thought.

"Aren't you?" she said, and a flash of the little girl he had known so long ago passed across her face as her fingers slipped off the pole and she stumbled. He jumped forward to catch her but she had pitched forward with more force than he thought. He caught her in his arms but they both tumbled down to the ground. His back hit the concrete and she landed on top of him, her weight resting mostly on his chest. She looked shocked for a second, but then settled happily against him. He realized his arms were still wrapped tightly around her, protecting her, and he had drawn her close against him without thinking.

"I am now," he whispered, and brushed his lips against the top of her head.

She looked up at him, her ear pressed against his chest, and smiled. "I can hear your heart pounding."

"Can you?"

She nodded – so like that little girl who had been gone so long, who he had thought was already gone some days when she had still been small – and wriggled up closer to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him one quick kiss on the nose before tucking her head back under his chin. Despite the cold and the concrete, he felt better than he had in a long time, and he hugged her tight against him. Even through their layers of clothes, he could feel her heart pounding, too.


	10. 004 Grave

**Disclaimer: I so wish I owned them, but Roy and Riza do not belong to me. I'm just borrowing them.**

**A/N: Spoilers up through somewhere in the late 50's, in the manga chapters. I rather like this one. I was just looking over that scene where the two of them are standing over her father's grave and I was struck at how young and fragile she looked. She's just so cute! I feel bad for her . . .**

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**004. Grave**

She remembered looking up at his stern face – he was so grown up and she, though she was only three years younger, was still such a child – and suddenly being filled with fear. He looked so committed, so ready to hand his life over to this military of his. She had squeaked out a childish plea for him not to die – _not ever, never, what would I do then? _– but had stopped herself short of throwing her arms around him and holding on tight with the force of her childish love. She had just lost her father and the thought of losing him, too – _her _Roy, though only in her thoughts – was unbearable. She decided in that moment, in that graveyard, that she would do anything and everything in her power to protect him.

As a little girl she had made something of an idol of him. She was a child starved for affection and he had walked into her home, a handsome, charming nine-year-old, and he had smiled at her. That had been enough to gain her affection. But the fact that he always made a point to check up on her (even though he pretended he wasn't) and of defending her against the taunts of the neighborhood boys, and his general sense of what was right were what had won her admiration. It wasn't long before she came to believe, with the full-hearted conviction and devotion only a child could hold, that he was quite possibly the best human being in the world.

That childish conviction had led her to follow him to the academy, believing in the military because he believed so much in it. Her father had believed that alchemy could bring about happiness, and Roy believed that the military could bring peace and, wide-eyed, she followed them both onto the sandy, bloodied ground of Ishbal and into a hell she, still somehow a sheltered child, had never imagined.

She had vomited the first time she pulled the trigger and took a life. But, she reminded herself, it wasn't her feelings that mattered, or her soul or whatever it was she had sacrificed to the trigger. It was all for what she believed in, _who _she believed in. She was insignificant beside this belief, a belief she still held, though now her child's eyes were glazed over with the sickening knowledge of adulthood brought on too soon. After that first time, her hands did not shake, her eyes did not close, her stomach did not lurch and her convictions, re-forged in the fires of all that she had given up, did not waver. She knew that only he, still somewhat deified to her despite all that he had done, could make all of this stop and change the world.

And so it was that, at a second grave, she remade her promise. When she buried that nameless child in the rubble of his homeland she buried her own foolish belief in happiness and peace. She knew the shining world she had imagined as a little girl was a dream and her eyes were too stained now to even look back at it without shame and anger. But he was still real, he was still exactly what he had always been, and somehow her faith in him had survived annihilation and the sight of the licking flames she knew she had given him. She could blame those on her father and the heavy knowledge carved into her back, but when she saw the look in Roy's eyes afterward – so haunted, so far away – she knew everything she needed to know about him. He was still magic to her, and she vowed for a second time to stand by him and protect him, no matter the cost. Because the child in her held on to that beautiful belief that he really was the best sort of man and that he could really change the world they way he said he could. Because she cared about him more than she cared about herself. She surrendered her whole being to him now, giving herself over to his direction, because in a childhood of black, moonless nights, he had always been her guiding star.

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Whoo hoo! 10% complete! And I'm still full of ideas. I've got like six of these in the works right now. Reviews are also helpful for motivation *winkwink* And thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far, you keep me going :)


	11. 068 Song

**Disclaimer: They don't belong to me D:**

**A/N: I have another one ready to come out, but I had to hold it until I wrote a few slightly (ahahaha I laugh at myself) lighter pieces. I didn't want to put to bits of total angstocity right next to each other, so now you get this wee fic.**

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**068. Song**

She felt uncomfortable, too exposed. She pressed her back against the wall, the thin fabric of her high-necked dress insufficient against the cold marble. She let the cold seep through and was almost grateful for it, as if it might be able to erase the marks on her back and the devastation they had caused. As if it might be able to remove her from the situation in which she currently found herself, wearing a red ball gown and attempting not to be noticed. She knew it wasn't true, but she indulged herself in the what-if for a moment as she folded her arms across her chest and tried to look as much like the marble as possible. She had no desire to dance. She felt like a big enough fool as it was, having let herself be talked into wearing this dress, she was not going to allow those gathered here the highly laughable sight of her dancing as well. She put on her customary stony expression and tried to recede into the shadows.

One or two of the younger officers from Central – the ones who didn't already know her reputation and her fondness for firearms – came up to her. They had asked her, very politely, to let them lead her onto the floor. She had refused them, looking away and never seeing the way their faces fell at the rejection and never truly understanding the effect she had on them. They weren't laughing at the dress. They weren't laughing at all.

She felt a firm, warm hand slip over hers, pulling it away from her chest. She looked up and saw obsidian eyes staring into hers, smiling warmly at her with a hint of something deeper, stronger in their dark depths. In them flickered a flame that frightened her a little but that also made her heart flutter faster as his fingers wrapped around hers and pulled her toward him. She could vaguely hear the quartet playing something pretty and sad, their bows pulling mournful notes out of their violins and cellos as her feet involuntarily stepped forward.

"Come on," he whispered as she felt the heat of his other hand as it found a resting place on her hip. Her arms slid up the lapels of his tuxedo of their own volition and came to rest just behind his neck. It would be so easy to pretend that this was true, was possible. His smell filled her senses, like musk and matches, and she leaned in. It was all right, just for tonight, just for one song. She could pretend this was not impossible. He smiled and pulled her closer until she could feel his eyelashes in her hair and his breath on her neck. She felt surrounded by a heat she could not let herself think about, could not let her skin beg for, except in this one moment. And she found herself praying that the song would never end, that the strings would continue to weep as she lied to herself and tried to believe that the urgency to touch him and be touched by him would disappear as soon as those notes died in the air.


	12. 085 Surprise Attack

**Disclaimer: They belong to Arakawa, not me.**

**A/N: More fluff.**

**085. Surprise Attack**

Roy tried to be very quiet as he flattened himself against the wall, the coat hanging from a hook beside him his only other cover. He made his breathing slow down until even he could almost not hear it and listened for the sound of her footsteps.

It was late and he had told Hawkeye he was leaving ten minutes ago. He had even gone so far as to make all the appropriate noises of taking down his coat and walking out the door. He knew she would likely be on her way out as well within a few minutes so he waited. He almost wanted to snicker to himself, but he knew that with her sharp ears that would definitely break his cover.

He heard the sound of her chair being pushed in and the sound of her dropping some files into her brown folder for delivery tomorrow morning. Her soft footfalls then moved toward him and he prepared himself. But before he could even move he felt the barrel of a gun touch his shoulder.

"Sir, what are you doing?" she asked, her face very serious as she stared up at him.

"Trying to . . . ambush you?" he answered, smiling uncertainly. "You knew I was here the whole time, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir." She cracked a small smile as she slipped her gun back into its holster. "Why did you want to _ambush_ me?"

"Uh . . . boredom?" he lied. "Gotta make sure you're on your toes."

She shook her head and turned away to grab her own coat. She pulled it on, her back still to him, and he saw his opportunity. As she turned back to face him he jumped forward, locking one arm around her waist to pull her toward him and moving the other hand under her chin to turn her face up towards his. Her eyes widened as he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. She squeaked in surprise, a sound very uncharacteristic to her, and he smiled against her and deepened the kiss. He felt her breathe in sharply as his tongue parted her lips and he tasted the inside of her mouth.

He broke the kiss a moment later, but left his hands where they were, one at the bend of her lower back holding her against him and the other under her chin, his thumb running along her jaw. Her huge brown eyes continued to stare at him in disbelief and he could feel her breath on his skin, quick and a little ragged.

"Did it work?" he whispered, brushing his lips lightly against her temple and feeling her shiver under the touch. "Did I surprise you?"

Her eyes widened yet more and then looked away, darting around the floor in search of something to focus on. She took a step back and he loosened his grip, allowing his hand to slide off her hip and return to his side.

"Uh, yes, sir," she said, her voice faltering as her eyes came back up to meet his. A blush spread across her cheeks – also very uncharacteristic of her, as nothing usually seemed to faze her – and she seemed unsure of what to do. She looked so much like a young girl who had just had her first kiss that he wanted to grab her in his arms and take her lips again, but he held himself still. "Good night, sir," she said suddenly and walked past him towards the door. For a moment he worried that he had gone too far, but her hand brushed his as she walked by and she turned and smiled at him, that brilliant, girlish smile he had fallen in love with so long ago, and all those thoughts stopped. "See you tomorrow." He smiled back and she disappeared out the door. He stood there a moment before moving again, still a little stunned by that smile he hadn't seen in too long, before snapping out of it and hurrying out the door after her.


	13. 028 Pain and Wounds

**Disclaimer: They aren't mine, only borrowing.**

**A/N: This one is sort of a gapfiller between manga chapter 37 and 38 (because there is so much of a gap haha). I don't love how this one came out. I dunno, I liked the idea more than the execution I suppose.**

**028. Pain and Wounds**

One minute it had been funny, flirting and joking with her over the phone as if she were any woman, some shopgirl, some Elizabeth. The flirtatious tone in her voice made him almost forget that they weren't really talking about what they were talking about and that there were other things at stake. He could let himself pretend that she was his, that he was going to stop by just to see her, that he was free to be with her the way he wanted. Then he had heard the door crash open, had heard the hungry laugh, heard the sound of gunfire and the sound of her rifle falling from her hand. Had heard her gasping for breath.

The next moment he was in a car flying down the streets to the warehouse where she was, praying to gods he didn't believe in (_but he would, he promised, if only she was all right_) that he would not be too late. The choking sound that had come through the phone with horrifying clarity rang in his ears as he ignored every traffic law and very nearly flipped the car over trying to get to where she was. To save her, to die for her if he had to, anything so long as she was all right.

He heard shots being fired as he launched up the stairs and he prayed to the empty air that that meant he hadn't failed, and he flung himself into the room just as her bullets ran out. Relief immediately morphed into rage and he let loose an explosion of fire to incinerate anything, everything that could contemplate laying a hand on her. He saw the creature explode in flames and fly out the window and he finally breathed a sigh of relief. Turning his eyes to where she stood beside him, he quickly assessed her with the eye of a military commander to see if she was wounded. She didn't seem to have sustained any serious injuries, but the sight of the red marks on her neck, impressions from the huge fingers that had tried to strangle her, filled him with anger again. But the fury drained out of him when he looked in her eyes, sparkling with life and indignation, and all that was left was relief that he had not lost her.


	14. 046 Sleepless Night

**Disclaimer: They aren't mine, but if they were, well, there's really very little I'd change about them. Except maybe Roy actually would call her Riza when they're alone . . .**

**A/N: I quite like this one, actually. Oh, Roy-o.**

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**046. Sleepless Night**

There were nights when the flood of memories would keep Roy Mustang from sleep. He had done some terrible things, images of which would flash unbidden through his mind and keep him awake, even until the sun rose and he had to drag himself out of his bed and into the blue uniform that both praised and reviled him for the actions he had committed in its name. He figured he deserved the exhaustion of the following day at least, for living through what he had. He simply stared at the cracks in the ceiling and let the memories wash over him until he became so sick with himself he could barely think.

The face of a young Riza Hawkeye floated up in his mind one night as he studied the shadows in his room. She must have been thirteen or fourteen years old, beautiful even as a child (he had always thought so) and she was smiling so brilliantly. He couldn't remember now what it was that had made her smile, but it made her whole face glow with joy and there was a sparkle in her eyes that he hadn't seen since before Ishbal.

He laid his arm over his face, almost as if to blot out the image. She had been shy, quiet, and such a sweet girl and remembering her young face made him ache to think of all the things she had lost. There really wasn't anything he could have done about her father, what he had done to her and how he had died, but Roy still felt somehow guilty, almost as if he had been complicit with the whole affair though it made him ill to think about.

What had come after, what had really destroyed her, he _did _blame himself for. He had seen a glimmer of it on her face when he had told her he was joining the military, and when he showed up at her house in his blue uniform. He had been all she had left of anything resembling family, and he had let her follow him into military service. He didn't know until he saw her again in Ishbal, broken but still strong, just what he had done to her.

He wondered now what might have become of her if she had never met him. She would never have shared with him the things her father had engraved onto her skin, and she would never have had to see the devastating results of those secrets employed on the people of that desert hell. She would never have joined the military, would never have had to kill, never have gained that inerasable sorrow and those haunted killer's eyes. What might she be now?

She would have a normal life. She would have gotten a job somewhere, maybe as a shop girl or, knowing her skill and intelligence, a shop owner by now. Maybe she would be a secretary – she did make a damn good personal assistant – or a coordinator of some kind. She was smart enough to do anything she put her mind to, so he was sure that she would be fine. She might even be married. She was beautiful and kind, so really it would have only been a matter of time before someone won her over. The image of her in the arms of another man made him wince and bite his tongue, but even the sharp pain and the metallic taste of blood in his mouth could not make it go away. He imaged her, long blond hair loose and that same girlish smile on her womanly face as she gazed up at a man who was not him. He could see the other man bend down to kiss her, touching her hair and drawing her close with his hands on the small of her back. He tried not to think of that other man's hands undoing her blouse, roaming over her pale, perfect skin, fingertips tracing the unread secrets on her back and sliding down over her hips and thighs. He squeezed his eyes shut as if that would keep out the images of her body bent against that other man. He imagined a little blond haired child in her arms and the sound of the two of them laughing together, the same musical laugh she had as a girl. Her soft hands, never calloused from handling firearms, touched the face of the child she might have had, in another life.

He rolled over and curled up in a ball, feeling nauseous. Everything she had lost, all the things she never had, would never have, were all his fault. Even that smile, now irretrievable, she had sacrificed to him. But the thing that disgusted him the most was the fact that he almost didn't regret it. Selfish, he wanted her by his side now, the woman that she was now, even though he knew he didn't deserve her. Even after everything he had done, after all the pieces and possibilities in her life that he had destroyed, he had the audacity to imagine the warmth of her in his arms, her calloused hands on his skin, and shiny onyx eyes in the face of the blond child.


	15. 091 Kiss

**Disclaimer: Am not a cow. Do not own Fullmetal.**

**A/N: This one came out a little . . . awkward. But I guess that's to be expected from teenagers.**

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**091. Kiss**

Roy wandered out into the back yard of Master Hawkeye's dilapidated home. The yard was almost as neglected as the crumbling stone house was, overgrown with weeds that reached up to Roy's waist in some places and tickled his bare forearms. Even so, Roy still thought this was the best place to study, especially on pleasant sunny days when the sky looked blue enough to swim in and the breeze carried the scent of warm earth. Sharing the library with Master Hawkeye was an intimidating and gloomy prospect, especially since his teacher was so frighteningly single-minded about his own research that he looked almost like a demon sometimes as he flipped through pages and furiously wrote down notes. The room in the house that Roy had been given was adequate, but lonely. He missed to the busy halls of his foster mother's house and the merry chatter of all his sisters, so the dark, quiet corridors of his teacher's house felt almost eerie at times. At least while he was outside he could feel the sun and the breeze and he had the solid ground beneath him while he studied the science that made men feel like gods.

He plopped himself down in the shade of the old chestnut tree and opened the heavy book on his lap to the descriptions of the transmutation circles his teacher had assigned for him to memorize.

He had studied for some time, enjoying the play of the dappled sunlight on the page as he traced and retraced the lines and symbols of the transmutation circles, when a small chestnut fell right into the center of his book. There was a slight rustle in the leaves above him and he turned to see if a squirrel or other such animal had dropped the nut, but there was no such creature in sight. He turned back to his book and continued memorizing. When he reached up to turn the page another chestnut fell and hit him in the knuckles. Again he looked and again he saw no animal that might have dropped it, but he felt sure that the tree itself was not out to get him. He returned to his studies and was subsequently hit in the shoulder, the forearm, and the back with the little projectiles. He was beginning to have his suspicions but each time he looked up into the tree there was nothing to be seen. Finally, a chestnut was thrown at the back of his head hard enough to make him yelp, he jumped to his feet and finally caught a glimpse of the culprit.

"Hey!" he yelled, and she tried to hide her face in the leaves but she could no longer silence her laughter. Roy spotted Riza, his teacher's daughter, grinning at him from halfway up the chestnut tree. "Why you little . . ."

He swung himself up into the lower branches, a devil's smile spreading over his face and he heard her shriek with laughter. She climbed easily down the opposite side and almost made it to the bottom before he grabbed her around her thin little waist and sent them both tumbling to the ground, turning slightly to take the brunt of the landing on his back as she continued laughing hysterically and trying to wriggle out of his grasp.

"You were up there the whole time, weren't you, you little brat?" he accused, rolling over and pinning her to the ground with his arms on either side of her shoulders and the weight of his legs trapping hers. "You hit me in the head!"

"Yeah," she squeaked out as she tried to contain her laughter, one slim hand reaching up to wipe tears out of her eyes.

"What for?"

"You just looked so serious," she answered and those big brown eyes turned up to meet his and his breath caught in his throat. There was something about her, something almost magical that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Her eyes seemed so wise, like those of a grown woman though she wasn't even fourteen, and yet they still looked as pure and innocent as the day he'd met her, a tiny little six-year-old in a patched-up dress at least two sizes too big for her. She fascinated him. She wasn't like any of his foster sisters or any of the other girls he's ever met. And, though he tried not to notice, his teenaged eyes could not help but see that her body had shed all the pudgy straight lines of childhood and had taken on the soft curves of a young woman. He blushed, realizing his current position, and moved off of her, allowing her to sit up.

"Well, you have good aim, I'll give you that," he said, rubbing the back of his head.

She laughed and he felt a little more at ease. Her smile, a genuine rare thing, had a way calming him down that he didn't really understand.

"I guess I'll just have to think of a fitting punishment," he said, allowing a smirk to creep onto his face.

"Punishment?" she repeated, the first shades of uncertainty not coloring her eyes.

"Yup," he said glibly. "You gave me a nice little knot on the back of my head. The law of equivalent exchange says I must give you something back."

An unsure little smile curled onto her lips. "But I'm not an alchemist."

"Doesn't matter," he said haughtily. "It's the law. Do you have any more chestnuts?"

Her little smile grew a bit wicked and she turned her hand over, revealing four more of the offending missiles in her palm. He snatched them up and tossed them over his shoulder and into the weeds behind him.

She laughed again. "I thought you said you were supposed to give me something, not take something away."

"That's true," he said thoughtfully. She was no more than two feet away from him, close enough for him to smell the rosewater soap she used on her skin. He hovered, uncertain, with his hand resting on his knee. Then, in a flash of confidence he grabbed her hand, pulled her towards him and pressed his lips to hers. The smell of rosewater and chestnut bark and Riza flooded his senses in the long seconds before he let go of her wrist and the chaste kiss was broken.

Riza pulled away from him, blushing bright red and tucking the hand that he had grasped in close to her waist. Her eyes were full of endearing confusion. "M-Mister Mustang?" she whispered.

"It had to be done, Riza," he said, grinning like an imp as he reveled in the euphoria of his success. "Equivalent exchange."

A ghost of a smile appeared on her face and her thin fingers unconsciously touched her lips as if trying to relive the sensation. _That was probably her first kiss, _he thought, and his mind reeled pleasantly with an even greater sense of wicked triumph than it had a moment ago.

"It's a fair trade, don't you think?" he said.

She stared at him a moment, those fascinating eyes studying his face and seeming to see right into him. She nodded slowly, a growing smile trying to hide itself, and wordlessly jumped to her feet and ran across the trampled path in the weeds to the back door of the house. Roy got up and moved back over to where he had left his book, still unable to wipe the grin off his face. He leaned back over his work but he had lost all ability to concentrate with hoping she would sneak back up into the chestnut tree looking for another 'punishment.'


	16. 089 Ultimate Weapon

**Disclaimer: Not mine!**

**A/N: This piece is speculative so there are pseudo spoilers up to chapter 99 I guess. Anyway, I wrote this piece (cliché though it is) because I am terrified that something like it will happen. As the manga seems to be slowly drawing to a close, I am more and more afraid that one of them will not survive (I am honestly deathly afraid it will be poor Riza). And so, since speculative fic is almost never right, I wrote this as a talisman of sorts **_**against**_** its happening. I'm fairly sure Arakawa won't go this tired old route, but the fear remains . . .**

**089. Ultimate Weapon**

He froze and, for a moment, his mind went completely blank. This could not be happening, could _not._

Across the cavernous space where he now found himself he could see her, wrapped up in the shadowy tendrils of Pride, a butterfly caught in the spider's web. As the trap tightened around her body her terrified eyes found him and begged him to run, save himself. He could see her try to struggle against the living black bands, as if flapping her fragile paper wings would save her from the deadly threads that tied her down.

"We know your weakness, Mustang," said the Fuehrer, stepping out of the darkness to stand beside the captured lieutenant. Roy could swear he saw an evil triumphant smile curl onto Wrath's lips. Roy said nothing; there was no reply he could give to that statement. It was the truth.

Wrath reached out and touched Riza, turning his attention onto her for a moment as he ran a hand through her loose hair. She was completely still as he circled her, finding the splash of blood on her cheek from the shoulder wound Envy had given her not an hour ago and tracing his fingertips over it. She tried to pull away from him but Pride held her fast.

"Let her go!" Roy shouted, the words leaping from his mouth before he even had time to consider them.

"Of course," said the Fuehrer, his tone light and his hand still on her face. "Just as soon as you open the gate."

"The gate?"

"The portal to the Truth, the doorway through which only the dead may pass," he answered. "We only want you to open it."

"Colonel, don't!" Riza shrieked. "Don't do it!" Her hands, bound to her sides by Pride, struggled again, her fingers curling in desperation. Pride unwrapped one of his many shadow arms and, wielding it like a knife, cut into her flesh, slicing through her white jacket and black tee shirt to make a deep gash just above her hip. She cried in pain and her words died on clenched teeth.

"Quiet," rumbled Pride in a terrifying voice that seemed to come from everywhere.

"If you will _not _open the gate," continued the Fuehrer, "we will send her beyond it, to a place from which she cannot be retrieved."

Roy looked at her, panicked eyes taking in the blood pouring from her wound and Pride's shadow arm, the same one that was already painted with her blood, rising up to hover at her neck where it could deliver the killing blow with ease.

"Don't give in to them," she gasped, her face drained of color and her voice of strength, though he could still hear every word she breathed with frightening clarity. "Not for me. Please, Roy."

But he couldn't look at her like that, couldn't let them take her away. What would he do without her? How many times had she saved him? No. She was the one thing that he could not allow to be sacrificed, whatever the consequences. The homunculi had figured that out long ago, he knew. It was his fault for not hiding it better. His selfishness and dependency had tried to keep her by his side and that had given him away. So what choice did he have now? It was his fault and his alone that she was in danger of losing her life. He couldn't let that happen, he had no other choice. With them wielding her against him, all he could do was obey.

**A/N: I've been writing like crap lately!**


	17. 100 Until that Day

**Disclaimer: I wish I owned fullmetal ****(or at least Roy)**** but alas no.**

**A/N: Spoilers through chapter 62 of the manga. I just love Roy's little chess metaphor. Buuut, I could have been happier with the piece.**

**100. Until that Day**

Everything had been taken from him. Fuery, Breda, Falman, all shipped off to the compass points far away from being able to do him any good. But, he consoled himself, at least they should be relatively safe. But Riza . . . she had been torn away from his side and sucked into the center of evil and there was not one thing he could do about it. He was totally powerless before the Wrath of the Fuehrer. Bradley had pinned the lieutenant like a butterfly in a glass case and could at any moment, at any wrong move from Roy, crush her between his fingers without a second thought.

Roy crumpled a meaningless form in his hand, the weight of the silence in his office becoming too much. There was nothing he could do _yet. _

His hand wandered across the desk and found the familiar object it unconsciously sought. He laughed at himself as his fingers wrapped around the elegant piece, the Black Queen, and he held it gently in his hand. The rest of the chess set lay untouched in the bottom drawer of his desk but he kept this one piece out as a reminder. He hadn't said it in so many words, but she had understood him. He had made a tacit promise to watch out for her and, though she would protest against it, he was willing to risk his life and everything they had worked for to save her from the Fuehrer. The day would come – no, _was coming _– when he would be able to take back everything that had been stolen from him and everything that he wanted would finally be his. But for now, he moved slowly and carefully, limiting himself to random phone calls just to hear her voice to be sure she was still fine. She had to be fine, she had to be able to come back to his side at a moment's notice. He needed her. Because she was the one thing over all the years since Ishbal that had held him together. Because her belief in him had helped him to keep believing in himself. Because if he couldn't have his queen beside him, then none of it meant a damn.


	18. 036 Dog

**Disclaimer: Don't own it, still. **

**A/N: This one turned out a little sappy. I'm not that happy with it. I love Hayate, though, he is adorable. There should be more scenes with Hayate out there.**

**036. Dog**

Black Hayate was resting on the comfortable living room chair from which he could see into the kitchen where his master was moving around. She was acting a little strange and had been since the telephone had rung about twenty minutes earlier and Hayate was worried about her. She wasn't easily upset, so the fact that she was now nervously rummaging through the kitchen cabinets and mumbling to herself in the scolding tone she sometimes used on him gave Hayate some cause for concern.

The doorbell rang and just as Hayate was jumping down off the chair he saw his master start and drop a jar of jam onto the floor. He barked at the door and heard his master call out.

"Just a minute!"

"Hawkeye?" called a familiar voice. Its sound was muffled by the thick wooden door but Hayate could still tell that it was Mustang. He barked again and hopped beside the door until his master came out of the kitchen, a reddened rag in her hands. She opened the door and Hayate ran outside, wagging his tail and doing an excited little dance around Mustang's feet.

"Are you all right?" he asked, his voice full of concern. Hayate looked up and followed his eyes to the stained rag.

"It's jam," she said tersely. "I told you not to come."

"I'm worried about you," he said, and Hayate watched his hand very closely as it reached out and touched his master's arm. He liked Mustang, but Hayate was very vigilant when it came to his master, and even the Colonel was not above suspicion. "Can I come in? Hawkeye?" His voice dropped to a whisper. "Riza?"

She relented and took a step away from the door, allowing him to pass through into the living room. Hayate trotted in after him and she shut the door behind him. But once they were all inside, she turned away and walked back into the kitchen. Mustang followed and stood on the threshold, unsure what to do as Riza bent to clean up the last bits of glass and splattered raspberry preserves off the faded tile of the kitchen floor.

"Are you ever going to talk to me?" Roy asked. She made no answer as she shook the rag out over the trash and moved to the sink to rinse away the reddish pink stains. He stood still for a moment, as if waiting, then crossed the kitchen and grabbed her shoulders. Spinning her to face him, he was only greeted by her angry expression and a shove from her wet hands. But he took hold of her wrists and held them still as he started to yell at her.

"What is the matter with you!? What can I do!? I just need to know that you're all right!"

She yanked her hands away and averted her eyes but didn't move away from him. He took a step closer and, frowning with concern, touched her cheek. She started at the touch but still refused to look up at him and Hayate could see a little bit of water forming in her eyes. He barked softly and her eyes refocused and looked at him, despair warring with subdued affection on her sad face.

"I'm fine," she mumbled, but Hayate could tell that wasn't exactly true. Mustang seemed to know as well. He moved a hand to rest gently on her lower back and, nudging her slightly, was able to guide her back to the living room and sit her on the couch.

"You don't have to tell me what's wrong," he whispered, taking one of her hands in both of his. "But I do want you to know that I'm here for you." He leaned in and kissed her on the temple.

From his spot on the floor Hayate could see his master squeeze her eyes shut tight and curl her fingers around Mustang's caressing hands as if they were a lifeline. She was sad and Hayate didn't know why, but he wanted to make her happy again. If she was sad, he felt sad, too. Watching with big puppy dog eyes, he inched closer and laid his head on top of their clasped hands and looked up at them both, whining quietly and willing his master to feel better.

They both looked down at him and their solemn faces warmed a bit. His master even smiled as she reached out with her free hand to stroke his ears.

"I'm glad you're here," she whispered, and some of her sadness seemed to melt away, bourn off by the two dark-eyed males who loved her.


	19. 005 Heiki weapon and Heiki fine

**Disclaimer: Do not own, only borrow.**

**A/N: There was a good idea at the core of this, but I think I may have given it bad directions and gotten it lost on the freeway.**

**005. Heiki (weapon) and Heiki (fine)**

Riza liked the feel of a gun in her hand. The cool metal against the skin of her palm was somewhat comforting to her. So long as she had her gun, no one could take advantage of her, no one could hurt her or anything she cared about. It made her feel safe. She never felt quite fully dressed if she couldn't feel the weight of a weapon somewhere on her person, whether it was concealed in her purse or slung openly into one of her many holsters.

When she was young, she had had no way of protecting herself. She had had no way of defending herself against the hot needles and ink her father wielded against her. There was nothing that she could have done, slight, quiet child that she was, to have prevented being turned into a receptacle of knowledge, a puzzle to be decoded, a weapon of untold power. He had told her he was trusting her with a big job, that she was vital to him in the protection of the secrets he had uncovered, but he had never asked her if she wanted that responsibility, had never asked her if she wanted to endure the red, lingering pain of the tattoos. Even if he had she would have had no way to say no. She had been made into a precious text, a detailed guide to her father's deadly powerful discoveries, but she could understand those secrets no more than the pages of a book understand the words printed on their own pale surfaces.

And then there had been Roy, that beautiful boy with his beautiful dreams and boundless heart. She would never ever regret passing her father's secrets on to him, becoming his weapon. Those secrets had made it possible for him to pass the state alchemy exam and move up the ranks of the military in pursuit of his goal, had made his dream into something attainable. Even if the devastation he had caused with what he had learned from her back meant she would be forever damned, she would not regret it. And whatever punishment the universe had in store for her for begging him to erase what he had learned from her body she would endure. All of this was right and acceptable and even if death was the price she had to pay for giving him that deadly knowledge, she was fine with that. She was grateful for even being allowed to live on this long, to be able protect him with the weapons her fingers understood, and when the fee came due and it was time for her to forfeit her life, she knew in her heart it would be given in protection of him as well. And she would not regret any of it.


	20. 032 Shirt

**Disclaimer: I am not Arakawa and therefore do not own any alchemists. I'd be willing to make her a good deal for her Flame Alchemist, though.**

**A/N: This one is not so bad. I know it's a little improbable that Roy went to study at the Hawkeye residence at the tender age of nine, but I just love the image of baby!Royai. I love the idea that they've known each other most of their lives and I wanted to write their "first meeting." Also, after the first paragraph I drop the 'foster' off his foster mother and foster sisters, both to keep the sentences from getting bulky and because I think he probably considers them family enough not to always feel the need to qualify that he is not really related to them.**

**032. Shirt**

Roy had already unpacked what little he had brought with him to his new teacher's residence, messily tossing his shirts and pants into the bottom drawer of the old dresser with little concern for whether or not they got wrinkled. It was a little strange to all of a sudden be in this huge quiet house, and he found he missed the shrieking and giggling of all his foster sisters more than he had thought he would. He missed his foster mother, too, and her gruff amused affection for her only son. He even missed being called Roy-boy.

Master Hawkeye seemed knowledgeable and everything, but Roy had felt a sort of shiver when he had first met the man, only a few hours ago at his front door, and he could not shake the strange feeling. Roy remembered his mother saying that Master Hawkeye had a daughter too but Roy had caught nothing more than a fleeting glimpse of a blonde haired child running away when he had first entered the house. Apparently she was shy.

Master Hawkeye had given Roy a cursory tour of the house, showing him where the library, the bathrooms, and the kitchen were before showing him to what would be his room and leaving him to get settled. The cobwebbed halls, peeling wallpaper, and windows dark with grime had only served to further set in the gloom that was overtaking Roy's usual cheerfulness. And, now that he was done unpacking, he really didn't know what to do with himself. He would have liked to go explore the master's library but he wasn't sure if he would get in trouble for taking too many liberties and decided that he would just wait until the master explained to him the rules of the house. He was feeling a little hungry, too, but he wasn't sure whether the master would want him messing about in the kitchen, either. He knew his mom was very strict about kids being in the kitchen without supervision and he didn't want to get off on the wrong foot with Master Hawkeye within hours of arriving at his new apprenticeship. Sighing, he pulled a book out of his bag and began reading, hoping that the master would call for him before too long.

But he wasn't really paying attention to what he was reading, his mind already racing with excitement about all the things he was going to learn about alchemy, so he heard the tiny knock on his door very clearly despite the fact it sounded more like a finger tapping against the wood than a fist.

"Come in," he called. The door cracked open just a bit and he could see a set of huge brown eyes staring at him. Slowly the door opened further and revealed a little girl with short choppy blond hair and a slightly frightened expression. The dress she wore was a drab grey and looked about two sizes too big for her, the sleeves all bunched up at her wrists and the high waist hanging loosely around her tiny body. She gulped nervously and entered the room and he could now see that she carried a plate of food balanced on her little hands.

"Father says he's going to work through dinner today," she whispered, not meeting his eyes. "So he told me to bring you s-something to eat. I-if you're hungry."

"Thanks!" he said, jumping up off the bed to take the plate from her. "I'm starved!"

She blinked up at him uncertainly, her hands now empty, and looked as if she wanted to run for the door. But Roy, still feeling lonely and a little homesick, was not about to let go of company of whatever kind that easily.

"Do you want to share it with me?" he asked. "It's not really any fun to eat alone."

"No, th-thank you, sir," she said, inching away from him. "I'm not hungry."

"Well, at least sit with me. And don't call me sir, I'm just a kid! I'm not that much older than you, probably. How old are you, five?"

"Six," she corrected quietly. "Almost seven."

"Almost seven? That's not far off at all. I'm only nine. But," he continued, turning his most charming smile on her, "I am still your elder and you should probably listen to me. So sit down, huh?"

He gestured to the bed and, blushing, she sat down in the spot he had pointed to, perching just on the edge as if she was preparing to make an escape as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Roy flopped down on the other side of the bed and started in on the dinner she had brought him. It wasn't bad, some peas and potatoes and a bit of chicken, and he shoveled it into his mouth like a starved man.

"So," he said, mouth full of peas (his mother wasn't here to scold him), "what's your name?"

"Riza," she answered softly, studying the patterns on the worn old quilt that covered his bed.

"That's a pretty name," he said and she blushed again. She was pretty cute actually, especially when she blushed. He smiled and reached out a hand. "I'm Roy Mustang."

Tentatively she placed her little hand in his and as their fingers touched she finally looked up into his eyes. He smiled broadly as he shook her hand and, after a moment, a little smile formed on her lips too. She was definitely pretty when she smiled.

"That's more like it," he said, letting go of her hand to resume eating his dinner. "We're friends now."

"We are?" she asked.

"Sure," he said confidently. "And I'm glad we are. I was getting really lonely."

She smiled a little shyly at that. "Yeah, it can get a little lonely around here with just Father."

"I'm really excited to start learning alchemy from your dad," he said. "I bet he's really smart."

"Yeah," she said, her smile fading and that look of fear coming back into her eyes. "He knows a whole lot about alchemy. I think he knows things nobody else does. He spends all his time in the library."

Roy frowned. "Does he work through dinner a lot?"

She nodded. "Most days."

"And you eat alone?"

She nodded again.

"Well, since we're friends now and everything, I think we should eat dinner together every night. I'll even come downstairs and eat at the table like a civilized boy."

She smiled again and a slow blush crept onto her cheeks. "I would . . . like that."

Roy got a warm feeling inside his stomach knowing that he had made this quiet little girl happy. He shoved the last of the food into his mouth and set his empty plate aside. She looked at it as if she felt she should take it back down to the kitchen, but before she could think about getting up Roy started talking again.

"Well, if you're dad's working so hard he probably won't call me in tonight. So, since we're such good friends, I think you should keep me company. Should we play a game? I have some cards in my bag or we could read stories or play hide and seek, though that game would be a little unfair since I just got here and I can barely remember where the bathroom is, much less find somewhere good to hide. But I'll let you choose." He moved to get down off the bed and go through his stuff to see if any of it would be of interest to her but he stopped when he felt a little tug. He turned to see that she had grabbed the bottom of his shirt with her little hand and was staring up at him with those giant brown eyes. She looked at him for a moment, her eyes so full of vulnerable honesty that he suddenly felt closer to her than to any of his sisters back home.

"I-I'm glad you're here," she said finally.

He smiled broadly. "So am I."

**A/N: Yays! 20% complete! That's one fifth of the total of this monster project.**

**Actually, that's a little scary. I still have 80 vignettes to write. **


	21. 024 Not There

**Disclaimer: They don't belong to me, but I wish they did. At least then I would know what was going to happen to them in the end . . .**

**024. Not There**

Slowly she closed the library door, hearing the catch click into place as it was pulled to. She shut her eyes and let her palms rest on the wood for a moment, as if saying goodbye to the room as well as to its former occupant.

"Riza?" The quiet voice of Roy Mustang did not startle her – she had even been expecting it. It was sad and low and it tried to comfort her. "Are you doing all right?"

She nodded. "It's just strange to think that he'll never go in there again. I won't be seeing him bent over a book and scribbling notes. He won't be falling asleep in his chair with a pen in his hand. This room is empty now because he'll never go inside again."

It had been a few days since the funeral. Her father was now buried in the ground but she felt an eerie lingering, almost like a ghost wandering the halls of the house. She turned and looked at Roy, standing there in his new blue uniform. She knew he would be gone soon, too, and she would be left alone in the creaking old house. She didn't like the thought.

"I'm sorry, Riza," he said. She wasn't sure whether he was apologizing because her father had died or because he too was planning to abandon her. Or whether it was because he knew now what her father had burdened her with. He had had that same sad apologetic look on his face when she had bared her back to him. But he had nothing to be sorry for.

"It's all right," she lied. In her mind he was already headed for the door, his receding back out of reach. She desperately wanted him to stay, to make this old house seem like less of a prison for departed spirits. Her hand drifted over the pocket in her skirt and she could feel the little card he had given her, stating his division and barracks number and all the information she would need to find him when she went to central and she thought about following him now. She didn't really know what she would do until she was old enough to go to the academy, but she could find something. She was only sixteen, but she could find some work and an apartment. Maybe. She just wanted to stay close to him. With her father gone, there was nothing tying her to this house but dead memories.

When the time came she watched him leave and she knew, though all she could see was his shrinking back, that he still wore that same sorry expression as his steps carried him farther and farther away from her. And when she finally closed the door on his retreating shape, those same hands pressing a second lingering silent goodbye to the unfeeling wooden barrier, she knew that she was the only ghost still wandering the halls of her enormous, empty sepulcher of a home.


	22. 031 Home Cooking

**Disclaimer: I disclaim.**

**031. Home Cooking**

Maes Hughes had always been fond of parties, especially now that he had a beautiful wife and daughter to show off (in person was even better than photos!), so he took every occasion offered him to invite friends to his house to share in his felicity. And Roy was very unlikely to throw himself a birthday party, so the celebration of the Colonel's 29th was thrown at his house.

The gathering was relatively small, just Roy, Hawkeye and the others under his command, Major Armstrong, and Gracia and Elysia of course. Maes had wanted to invite the Elrics but they were off on their continual travels and he wasn't sure how to get a hold of them.

"Gracia, you've outdone yourself, really," said Roy, smiling easily as he sat at the head of his friend's table. "This food is amazing."

"Thank you, Roy. I'm glad you like it." Gracia smiled radiantly and Roy thought, not for the first time, what a lucky man Hughes was.

Fuery, who had been shoveling said food into his mouth with gusto – he had probably lost his money in another bet with Falman – seconded this opinion. But Roy's eye was drawn beyond the young man to the woman who sat beside him near the far end of the table. He had been a little disappointed that Hawkeye had chosen to sit so far away from him, though he refused to ask himself why. She looked especially beautiful today, her long blond hair framing her face and a slight smile on her lips. She had drunk just enough wine to have a warm blush on her cheeks and a very peaceful, shining look in her eyes. His skin prickled with desire to be close to her.

"Riza! Riza!" came the tiny voice of Elysia as the little girl ran up to stand beside the chair of the blonde woman. "I wanna show you something!"

"What's that, Elycia?" asked Riza, noticing the slightly wrinkled piece of construction paper that the three-year-old held behind her back.

"I drew you something." She produced the page for Riza to see. Though it had been done in crayon by the hand of a toddler, Riza could easily tell that it was a drawing of her dog.

"Is that Black Hayate?" she asked, picking up the little girl and placing her in her lap.

"Yeah!"

Maes smiled slyly as he watched Roy's attention become absorbed by the interaction between Hawkeye and Elycia, his dark eyes turning soft and dreamy. The lieutenant's strong arms circled the child and she rocked slightly in her chair as Elycia's little fingers pointed to the curly scribble of a tail she had given to her crayon rendering of the shiba inu. A smile spread across her lips when the little girl looked up at her and stretched out her little hand, offering the picture as a gift, and Roy's mouth mirrored hers.

Maes could figure what Roy was thinking, so he refrained from rushing over to the lieutenant and making a fuss over his daughter's artistic skills and breaking up the pretty dream his friend was having. He was sure that, if things weren't the way they were, if Roy had been simpler, less idealistic and more grounded in the everyday normalcies of life, he would long ago have changed the lieutenant's name to his own. Maybe there would even have been another little one running around the room, playing with Elycia and drawing pictures of its own.

But that was the price that had to be paid, Maes supposed, the sacrifice that Roy had had to make in order to achieve his goals. Trying to protect everyone in the world would be too much for him if he created a world of his own with Riza. Maes knew this for a fact, from experience. But that was what made Roy such a great man, and it was what made Maes and Hawkeye and all of the men assembled in the room respect him as much as they did. But, knowing what Roy had given up better than anyone else, he could not deny his friend the little fantasy, if only for a moment, before he was forced back to the hard reality of secret plots, paperwork, subordinates, and his empty house.


	23. 003 Battlefield

**Disclaimer: Arakawa is the god of FMA, I am merely a believer.**

**A/N: There's nothing explicit, but of all the pieces I've written so far for this collection, this is the one most deserving of the T rating.**

**003. Battlefield**

The way he breathed her name made it sound like something sacred, a prayer exhaled whenever his mouth was not in contact with hers. And his roaming hands worshipped her skin, touching, caressing, grasping with pious desperation as he pulled her body close against his.

But she knew her body was no altar and she no saint, even as the heat of his devout adulation pressed her down into the bed and blurred all other thoughts. All her scars were proof enough of that, old bullet holes and burns from battlefields neither her body nor her mind had been able to escape without bearing the wounds and carrying the pain that proved their existence. Some of those scars she had wanted, had begged for from the fire of his own hands that were now so gentle and supplicating, sweet like hymns as they touched her face and grazed the line of her neck.

He was no better off. She caught his right hand in her left and pulled it to her lips, kissing his palm even as her deft fingers could feel the thin scar tissue of the array he had carved on the back of that same hand, like a smaller mirror of her own oldest wound. And her right hand had wandered down his abdomen, finding the shallow crater he had burned into his own body to seal the wounds Lust had given him. She pulled him closer, the fear from that night coloring her mind as she nestled her face into the hollow of his neck and felt his breath against her hair. His strong hands comforted and entreated her with their own silent scripture and she answered them with a litany of gasping sighs. She whispered his name in an urgent invocation and he shifted, her breath catching in her throat as his hands moved reverently over her thighs. He came down to her, like an image of divinity, and they moved together, breathed together as they let go of their battles and scars, forgave each others' sins and felt their bodies and souls entwine in the single sacrament of unity.

Skin to skin, both their bodies bore more resemblance to battleground than holy ground, but in one another's touch they found the closest earthly thing to heaven and the only sanctity that either of them would ever know. Their troubled minds grew peaceful as they lay, arms entangled and bodies held together like lines of verse. As one they breathed out a quiet amen into the night, both knowing that dawn would draw them back to the battlefield.


	24. 037 Match

**Disclaimer: FMA. It is not mine.**

**A/N: I am NOT OKAY after reading chapter 100. Not. Okay. At all. But, as this was written a few days ago, it has nothing to do with that. So no spoilers here. I am pointedly ignoring the last few pages of that chapter until next month. Dammit.**

**037. Match**

Riza Hawkeye had no illusions about herself. She was perfectly aware of her ordinariness. There was nothing special, nothing glowing, nothing ethereal about her at all. Her hair was plain and straight, her eyes a dull brown with no sparkle. Her limbs were strong and her body fit, but they were nothing out of the common way. As for her personality, she knew she was uninteresting. Her conversation was sparse and seldom sought after and her insights, while sharp, were nothing that could not have been easily pointed out by the greater intellects she was surrounded by.

She was nothing compared to him.

He was brilliant and beautiful and so full of a sense of right that she was sometimes afraid he would martyr himself to it. And his compassion – though usually hidden behind the flawless mask of The Colonel – was almost boundless. She had asked forgiveness from his eyes more than once and it had always, always been given, even when she knew she didn't deserve it. He wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but he was a great man destined for great things and she felt so tiny when she stood by his side.

The only thing she found of value about herself was her loyalty to him. When she told him she would follow him into hell if he asked she had meant those words more than any others she had uttered in her life. She knew she was outmatched and outshined by him in every way, but it was right and true and she felt, because of this, that the greatest thing she could do with her life would be to protect him and help him achieve his goals. And, though she wholeheartedly offered herself as a pawn to be used by him, she would be lying if she said she had never entertained an impossible hope for something more. But she knew these were unattainable dreams. They could never match up. She was a stone and he was a mountain. She was his aide, his protector, and his loyal follower, and she contented herself with that. She dare not ask for anything more; he had already become her everything.

***

Roy Mustang knew his own shortcomings. He knew he could be naïve and idealistic. He knew his temper could sometimes be called bad. He knew he took things too personally. But he also knew that that same naïve idealism was the only thing that could get the country out from under the perpetual shadow of war and that his bad temper could protect those ideals with willing fire. And, though perhaps he did take some things too personally, he had no desire to distance himself from the anger he felt when something he cared about was done an injustice or when someone he cared about was threatened.

There was one person in particular whose welfare he took more personally than he ought.

She was brilliant and beautiful and so fearless he was always afraid she would get herself killed trying to protect him. While it was true that he sometimes thought a little too much of himself, that feeling disappeared as soon as he looked into her eyes. She was so much better that he was that it stung. She was the moonlit sky and he was a candle. He could never match her for quiet perfections. Her unassuming beauty and the fact that she had no idea just how gorgeous she really was always struck him though he had known her for so many years. Her unending loyalty to him made him feel undeserving and almost shameful whenever he gave her an order. He did not know what he had done to engender such loyalty in her faithful heart, but he was grateful for it. She wasn't perfect, no one was, but she was strong and selfless and pure in a way he almost couldn't believe was possible, especially after all they had seen and done in Ishbal.

He valued her above all else, even above his other subordinates, though he had no real right to do so. She had given herself to him to command not to care about, but he could not deny that he did. As his subordinate, her safety was his responsibility and he was afraid that if she was seriously injured or – _don't even think it – _killed under his command he would never be able to forgive himself. She had told him that she would follow him into hell if he asked, and that promise meant more to him than any other he had even been given. She had put her trust in him so totally and committed herself so fully to his mission that he felt despicable for wanting more. He already didn't deserve her. She was his soldier, his perfect pawn, his faithful right hand. But he was selfish; he wanted her to be his everything.


	25. 069 Are You Satisfied?

**Disclaimer: I own some books. But I didn't write any of them, sadly, and Fullmetal is amongst that lot.**

**A/N: I come bearing fluff! Partly because I need a not-depressing fic and partly because I am not yet ready to put out my obligatory "dealing-with-chapter-100" ficlet yet. It will come, of course, but not yet.**

**069. Are You Satisfied?**

Riza sighed as she glanced up at the stack of papers still awaiting the Colonel's signature of approval as the man himself sat lounging sleepily in his desk chair.

"Sir, you do know those reports are due in this afternoon, don't you?" she said. His lazy mouth formed a languid 'o' as his drowsy eyes tried to focus on her. "And I doubt that the excuse of taking a nap will go over well with the general."

That woke him up a bit. He grumbled – she thought she caught the words "slave driver" amongst his other mumblings – but turned and began to set himself to the work she had mentioned. She restrained a self-satisfied smile. He might be the superior officer, but it was she who kept him in line. Inside this office, he was the one under her thumb and they both knew it.

Still, he didn't seem to mind. Sometimes Riza could swear that he enjoyed being ordered around by her. He would cast her a cute little conquered grin and hunch his shoulders, as if prepared for a whip, as he bent to whatever task she had ordered him. Sometimes she wondered just how far that workplace authority would get her, just what she might be able to order him to do, but she had never tested it beyond using it to get him to complete his necessary work.

She returned to her own work – she still had a fair amount, though nothing compared to the Colonel's stack – and tried to banish inappropriate thoughts. But her mind _would_ wander. She imagined his hands, large and dexterous, reaching around her head to undo her hairclip so he could run his fingers through her hair. She imagined his white dress shirt unbuttoned and untucked, hanging disheveled from his strong, bare chest. She imagined the heat of his skin under her hands. She shook her head. No. She reined her mind in, giving herself a mental lashing for having such unforgivably improper thoughts about a superior officer. Still, when she turned to make sure he was still working away, it became harder to keep the images at bay and, in a desperate effort to hide the growing redness of her face, she jumped to her feet.

But her gesture had been too abrupt and all five sets of eyes in the office turned to her, more than a little fear in some of them. She picked up her thick brown courier's folder and tucked it against her chest.

"I have to deliver these to the Investigations department," she said matter-of-factly. "Colonel, I expect those papers to be signed by the time I come back." Mustang grumbled again, and this time she thought she heard the words "heartless dicator," but she could also see the beginnings of that little vanquished smile and she headed out the door before it went to her head.

She was half way down to Investigations before she felt the heat in her face subside and she could freely chide herself inwardly for letting her mind run away from her like that. She had no business thinking things like that about the Colonel. Especially while in the office. She continued to fiercely chastise herself when the images attempted to resurface as she handed the folder to the clerk at Investigations. The clerk gave her a surprised look upon seeing the files from Mustang's office arrive days before their deadline but Riza had no comment for him on their earliness but a shrug.

To give herself a few more minutes before returning, Riza walked down to the mail room to check for incoming documents and passed through the distribution office to see if any more paperwork had piled up for the Colonel. All told, about a half an hour had passed before she made her way back toward the office. She could hear the voices of Mustang, Havoc and Breda in the middle of a raucous discussion of some sort. Clearly she had allowed herself to be away for too long because they all seemed to have forgotten their work, letting unsigned documents lay abandoned on their desks as they lounged back in their chairs.

She opened the door a little more loudly than she would normally have done, just to watch them all snap back down to their desks and grab their pens frantically.

"Look, Hawkeye, I'm nearly done!" said Mustang, holding up one of the last few pages from his pile for a moment before setting it down on his blotter to read.

"Very good, sir," she said, setting down another stack, though small, that she had picked up in her travels. Mustang deflated a little.

"Do you go to other offices just to find more work for me?"

"No, sir," she answered. "It wouldn't seem like so much if you kept up with it better."

Time passed and Riza worked through her own pile of paperwork – some of it not due until next week – as, each in turn, the other four officers completed their own assignments for the day and were excused.

"Hawkeye, do I really have to do all of this?" he said once they were alone in the office with darkness gradually falling on the world outside.

"Yes, sir," she said curtly.

He whined but continued to read and sign for another half an hour until he had finally finished the stack. He threw his pen down with a flourish and stood, stretching his arms towards the ceiling and causing his jacket to slide up and reveal the neatly buttoned dress shirt beneath. He yawned widely and turned those coal black eyes on her.

"There, Lieutenant, I've finished it all! Are you satisfied?" His lips curled up in that little smile that made the heat return to her face. She imagined what it would feel like to cross the room and grab his jacket front and drag him down, pulling his lips to hers, smelling his skin and feeling the warmth of his breath against her face.

_Satisfied? _she thought. _No._

"Yes, sir," she said, endeavoring to sound like it and allowing herself only a carefully schooled smile in response to his as she moved to get her coat.


	26. 023 Someone I Want to Protect

**Disclaimer: Fullmetals. They are not mine.**

**023. Someone I Want to Protect**

She listened to him, standing at attention before his desk, as he described his very scientific, geometric progression (_I protect you, you protect those under you, they protect those under them, and so on_) and the obvious question floated unasked on her lips.

_With you at the top of that pyramid, who stands above to protect you?_

He was still that boy who had told her his dream, and still somehow that man she had seen with broken eyes in the desert. He was the idealist, tempered with the real horrors he had seen and inflicted. He knew he couldn't protect everyone alone, but if he recruited enough followers he could create a canopy of people who could eventually protect everyone. And he, with his singular mix of naiveté and realism, could make it happen. She knew. He could make that idealism into reality and create that beautiful world in his dreams.

And so, no matter what the cost, no matter how much she deceived herself and soiled her hands, no matter how much blood was spilt on her, soaked into her, stained her irretrievably, she would be the one to stand above. To protect him. Because the world needed him.

And because she needed him.


	27. 071 Premonition

**Disclaimer: If I owned Fullmetal, Havoc would be healed and the whole Roy-tachi would make it through the Promised Day ****unscathed****. D: ALL OF THEM DAMMIT.**

**A/N: This chapter has nothing to do with chapter 100 of the manga. And it is monstrously long compared to my other chapters. Over 2000 words. But the fic gets what the fic wants, and this one wanted to run long.**

**071. Premonition**

Truthfully, Roy wasn't really even sure what he was looking at anymore. He had been staring at these papers and records and requisitions for so long trying to make sense of them, trying to see what Hughes has seen in them, that they were beginning to look like total gibberish.

He'd long ago sent home all of his subordinates, even Hawkeye who had looked at him with those big brown eyes full of concern and resisted his dismissal until the clock hands rounded to midnight and he had practically handed her her coat and pushed her out the door. Even now, hours later as his eyes swam over the fine print of countless forms, the clearest thing in his mind was the worry in those mahogany eyes. She had looked at him that way too often since Hughes had died and he didn't know how or even if he could reassure her.

He put his head down on his hands, trying with little success to rub the sleep out of his eyes. His head was so heavy he felt like he couldn't possibly hold it up anymore.

"_Roy?" The voice was familiar and when the darkness faded from his vision he could see her face, her warm brown eyes, and she was smiling up at him. He could feel her fingers running through his hair and her soft breath on his skin._

"_Riza?" he questioned, though he already knew it was her._

_She giggled like a little girl and danced away from him until she was some short distance from where he was standing. Where they were he could not tell, though it seemed sunny and pleasant, like a field in summer. She stood and looked up at the sky, and he could see her in profile. She looked almost impossibly beautiful, her long blond hair loose over her shoulders and ruffling against her face in the light breeze. She wore a simple white dress that reached down to her knees, though as the wind played with the light fabric he could see the perfect shape of her legs and hips. Her small hand moved to push a stray hair out of her face and he knew he had never seen anything so graceful in his life before. She turned and looked at him, her face full of joy and love, and smiled. He walked toward her, his limbs feeling like heavy stone as she flitted around effortlessly, a fairy dancing with a golem._

_But when he finally caught hold of her hand, she yanked it away, yelping in pain and dousing flames against her dress. His touch had burned her. He had caused her pain but her eyes held only apology. And that hurt him worse than reproach because he didn't want to see that sad, sorry look in her eyes, didn't want her to blame herself for what he had done. What he had done to her._

_She reached out with her red, burnt hand and touched his chest and he tried to withdraw, afraid that he would burn her again, but no flames erupted. She came closer, slowly, her face becoming more painfully apologetic until her body was pressed against his and he could take it no longer._

"_What are you sorry for?" he demanded, trying not to sound as if he was angry with her. "You didn't do anything. It was my fault. It's all my fault." He kept his hands still at his sides, afraid that if he touched her she would burn. _

_She looked up at him, held his gaze with her huge brown eyes, and her face filled with sadness and pity. She tucked her head under his chin and held there so that he could feel her heartbeat for a moment before she spoke._

"_You can never touch me," she said into his collar. "You can never ever touch me or I'll burn to ash."_

_How? He wanted to ask. Why? But his voice would not appear, shamed as it was by the pity in hers. She stood there, pressed against him with her arms folded up against his chest as if waiting for him to embrace her. But he dared not move one muscle. Then she jumped away from him abruptly and the loss of her warmth against him was like a stab._

"_I will follow you into hell if you ask me," she said evenly, catching his eyes with hers again. "Just like Hughes. Only he went ahead, lit the path. I will go ahead, too, if you ask me. If you need me. If you need me, I will burn."_

"_No, please don't," he begged, reaching toward her before remembering the fire. But this time she did not pull her hand away, even as the flames licked up her arm._

"_Put them out!" he cried, unable to do anything to help her. If he tried to smother them himself more would rise when he touched her. "For god's sake put the fire out!"_

"_Yes, sir," she said, and the fire disappeared. But now she was standing before him in her blue uniform, no trace of burns on her arms or emotions on her face. She saluted him stiffly. "Was there anything else that you needed me for, sir?"_

"_Need you?" he said, dazed. She had said that if he needed her, she would burn. "No. I only need you to take care of yourself. Protect _yourself_."_

_Her face was stern, but there was a softness at the corners of her mouth and he thought he saw sadness mixed with the determination in her eyes._

"_I can't do that, sir," she answered. "I made a promise. To watch your back. To protect you from harm. I failed." Her stony face cracked and he could see tears in her eyes. "It's hurting you, burning. I can't let it stop you. I can't let myself stop you. This didn't protect you." Her hands ran over the rough blue fabric of the uniform and it disappeared under her touch, turning back into the white dress she had worn earlier. From nowhere she produced a handgun, one of the ones he had seen her clean and handle and fire more times than he could count. It was shiny and black and it looked like a dagger as she turned it towards herself. "This didn't protect you."_

_Before he could scream she fired. The gun made no noise but a small hole appeared in the white fabric of the dress and blood began to pour forth, spreading like a huge red flower over her chest and covering her pale skin. Her legs collapsed and she fell, hitting the ground with her hair fanned out behind her head and her limbs lying haphazardly, like a rag doll thrown to the floor._

_And the look on her face was the same as the one Hughes had had when Roy had gone down to the morgue. Her pupils contracted to pinpoints of horror, but her eyes were empty now because her pale face would never move again. He touched her cheek with heavy stony hands, screaming at her to wake up, screaming and screaming. He shook her shoulders and tried to rouse what he knew was gone, and he didn't notice that he was on fire until he was burnt black and beyond saving._

He woke himself with screaming and looked around frantically, surprised that the flames had disappeared. He could still see that dead look on her face and he might have thrown up if he had remembered to eat anything earlier in the day. He had to see her, to see her face, to see her alive, to be sure that the dream wasn't true. To be sure that she wasn't lying on a slab under fluorescent lights like Maes had been.

He ran blindly out of the office and into the street toward her building. He didn't notice the sun just beginning to rise in the east as he entered her building and ran up the stairs, fumbling down the dimly lit hall in a panic to reach her door.

"Riza!" he shrieked, pounding on her door with both his fists and not even hearing the terror sharpening his voice. "Riza, please god, open up! Riza!"

"Colonel?" she cried, the panic in her voice cutting through his own as the door flew open under his hands. She stood there, eyes sharp and searching his face quickly before looking out beyond him. She was alive. She was not bleeding out or consumed by flames. She was steady and alert as her brown eyes looked for something to fight. There was a gun in her hand, a black handgun, and he swiped it from her grip, grabbing the barrel so as not to touch her.

"Colonel, what's the matter?" Her eyes came back to his face and a worried frown formed on her lips.

He blinked and finally calmed down enough to see her. Her hair was loose and disheveled from sleep and she wore a grey camisole and striped pajama pants. He had scared her out of a sound sleep and she had come running to him so quickly that she hadn't even grabbed a robe to cover her bare arms and neck from the early morning chill. He let out a breath, finally realizing it had been a dream, and stepped back from her door.

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant," he said, trying to keep his voice even. "I shouldn't have woken you."

One of her hands moved to her throat as if to pull closed a robe she wasn't wearing. He followed its motion, refusing to meet her eyes. The concern on her face only deepened.

"Are you all right, sir? Did something happen? I shouldn't have left you alone in the office."

"It's not your fault, Hawkeye," he said, more harshly than he had intended. He cleared his throat and took another step away. "I'll see you in the office in a few hours."

He turned to leave but she reached out and grabbed his hand. He didn't resist. Her touch was further proof of life and he held still and felt the warmth of her hands on his.

"Please, Colonel, let me make you some tea," she said, and loosened her grip. "You don't look well."

He looked at her over his shoulder. Even without the white dress she was almost impossibly beautiful, but the worry in her eyes made his heart contract painfully. She released his hand and backed up into her apartment, standing aside and waiting for him to pass through the door. He walked in, hardly knowing what he was doing anymore.

She turned the lights on – something she hadn't wasted time doing when she had thought he was in danger – and slipped into the kitchen to put the kettle on. He took a seat at her table. Hayate trotted out of her dark bedroom and came over to greet him. He absently pet the pup, staring at the dull white walls and the stack of boxes still to be unpacked.

She was back with the tea in moments, and she set a cup of it on the table and pushed it towards him. Without thinking he reached for it and felt his fingers brush against hers. He sucked in a breath and waited for her skin to go up in flames, but it remained pale and cool and her eyebrows furrowed as she looked down at him.

"Maybe you should take today off, sir," she suggested. "Get some sleep."

He forced a smile and took a sip of the tea. "I'll be fine." She had brewed the tea quickly, not really allowing it to steep in her concern over him, and it was rather tasteless but the scalding heat of it woke him up a bit nonetheless. "I'm feeling better already."

She nodded and a weak smile formed on her lips, for his benefit he knew. She walked past him and through her bedroom door. Before she disappeared into the darkened room he caught a glimpse of the top half of her father's array, peeking out over the top of the camisole, and with it the scars he had left with his own fingers, with his own fire on her body. He hadn't seen them since the day he had given them to her, fighting a rising nausea and trying to erase the sound of her stifled cries of pain, and he suddenly wanted to be sick again. Before she came back into the room with her robe on, he was halfway to the door.

"Sir?" she called, and the worry in her voice stopped him in his tracks again.

"I'm fine, Hawkeye, really," he said, without turning around. "I think a shower and a bit of breakfast will put me back to rights. I'll see you in the office." He let himself out and wandered back into the early morning sun, wondering how he could ever face her again knowing what a despicable creature he was, facing the gentle scrutiny of those warm brown eyes. He had burned her, and that was bad enough, but if his plans went wrong, if she lost her life or ended herself because of him, that would be the end. The end. If it was prophesy, he would have to fight himself not to follow the dream to its end and burn himself in his own fire and die with her name in his lips, knowing that giving his life was nothing like equivalent exchange for the loss of hers, and knowing that if he abandoned his goals – _their _goals- he had nothing worthier to offer.

**A/N: I love writing dreams. They can mean nothing and everything all at once. **


	28. 095 Now

**A/N: Contains major spoilers for chapter 100. Yes, this is my obligatory 100-ficlet. Yes, I am still not over the end of that chapter, and am trying to work through my grief/suspense/anxiety like many other authors. *&%$#%$*^%$#^$^% is it November yet?**

**Disclaimer: If I owned Fullmetal, Doctor Creepy McGoldtooth and his little Wannabe-Bradley-Bradley-Empty-Heads would have been flamed by Roy before they even had a chance to look at Hawkeye funny.**

**095. Now**

The symmetry was gut wrenching and in the few impossibly long seconds as the sword flashed behind her head, all but forgotten now that its work was done, and her pupils shrank to terrified points of darkness in the center of her mahogany eyes, he felt almost as if he was back in her father's study. She pitched forward, her eyes already becoming as empty as her father's had been, blond hair streaming out behind her. And he was too far, too far away to catch her and there was no old wooden desk strewn with papers to save her from hitting the floor as the blood poured out – no, not from her mouth but from her _throat. _

He screamed for her, as then – though her name was different now, a careful title much too careful for the scene before him, but he screamed it anyway, in blind denial breathless with almost-hope too fragile not to be destroyed by the name he had yelled _then._

But now there was no answer to his call, none but the steadily pooling blood on the floor around her. There was no frightened young girl pressed against the door, horror on her round, innocent face. Now there was only silence and the ghost of memory pale against her figure crumpled on the floor like a discarded instrument never used for its true purpose. Now his mind hurtled out of the past and into the inconceivably horrific present. Strong arms held him still even as he raged mindless as an animal, furious to cross the distance between them and _do_ something, anything to change the impossible, unacceptable, undeniable present, this manifestation of phantoms of the past come to destroy everything he loved _now_.


	29. 058 Before Falling Asleep

**Disclaimer: I only own Partmetal. Fullmetal is not mine.**

**A/N: It's been a while. This theme is fluff. YAY!**

**058.**** Before falling asleep  
**

Roy lay awake staring at the woman asleep beside him, her face nuzzled into the pillow and her fingers curled beneath her chin. The light of the sinking moon shone on her long blonde hair and her eyelids, flickering with dreams. She sighed and smiled in her sleep and he felt a smile spread across his lips as well, and wondered what she was dreaming about. He risked reaching out to brush her mussed bangs out of her face. She made a little humming noise and crinkled her nose adorably but didn't wake up. He bent his head down and kissed her nose.

"You are perfect," he whispered.

She frowned and stretched an arm out to touch his chest. "No," she mumbled.

He laughed quietly and kissed her forehead. "Yes, you are. My perfect girl."

He wrapped an arm around her, fingers tracing over the lines of a tattoo he couldn't see, over old scars, and drew her closer to him. His feet found hers under the covers, her toes cold, and he twined their legs together. He lay his cheek against hers and pressed his lips to her temple and then into her hair.

He knew she was scarred. He knew she was stained. She was broken and bleeding in all sorts of ways. But she held herself together and she held him together when he thought he would shatter. For all her imperfections, she _was _perfect to him. In every way that mattered.

"Roy," said Riza, sounding sleepy and a little annoyed. He shifted and looked at her face, big brown eyes serious though they were still mostly covered by sleep-heavy lids, corners of her mouth turned down in her customarily commanding frown. He couldn't help but smile at seeing her "office face" in the dark of their bedroom.

"What, love?"

"Go to sleep."

He laughed aloud and pulled her tight against him, feeling her lips press against his shoulder and smile before he finally closed his eyes.

"Yes, Lieutenant."


	30. 014 Covered Eyes

Disclaimer: If I owned Fullmetal, chapter 102 would have gone very differently.

Warnings: Super major spoilers for said chapter.

A/N: Okay, so I don't usual write first person, and even less often do I write in present tense, but this idea just seemed to need it. Roy is very much swallowed by the moment here, and swallowed by his own lost potential, as he sees it, so it needed the strange perspective. At least in my opinion.

**014. Covered Eyes**

Lucky. I have to focus on how lucky I am. If I don't, I'll fall into this deep darkness I can no longer see my way out of and I'll be lost forever.

I have to think _at least I'm alive. I made it out of the underground in _almost _one piece. _I have to believe I can go on. Even though all I want to do is give up.

What am I now? All that I was – The Flame Alchemist, the Colonel, the insurgent, the upstart eyeing the seat of the fuhrer – is gone. Gone. Fallen into the pitch black thick air I can barely force into my lungs, out of reach forever. For_ever._ What's left. What is left of me?

I'm nothing, a useless doused flame fizzled into the air.

There are voices all around me but they have faded into background noise. I can't think straight, pressing my wounded, screaming hands into my face as if one pain could ease another, as if when I take them away I'll be able to see again. As if the smell of blood, metallic, dead, is all I am and all I can be. As if it always has been.

One voice rises out of the din. I know that voice better than I know my own and I freeze in my despair. She can't see me like this. I cruel voice in my head laughs at how much I care about what can be seen. I can't let her see me like this, but I can't move away from the crystal sound of her voice.

"Let me go!" she says, and I can hear her struggle in her voice.

"Miss Hawkeye, please, you shouldn't move around so much!" It sounds like Mei but I can't be sure.

"You're still wounded." A gruff voice, probably the chimera I entrusted her to before I was sucked into the Gate. At least I did one thing right in choosing him and he was able to get her out of that underground hell alive, too.

"Get off me!" she says, her voice ringing into my head like a silver bell despite the dangerous edge it carried.

I hear quick footsteps approach me and then a dull thump and the tiny gust smell of _her, _of blood and gunmetal and ink-in-skin, that tells me she is here, right in front of me. I try to turn my face away as the hitching labored sound of her breathing fills the darkness.

"Colonel," she whispers, so soft I almost can't hear, though I can feel the sad puff of air that carries it. Her hands, gentle, small, rough, and cold from the underground and the loss of blood, take my wrists, pull my hands away from my face.

I grimace. She can see me, she can see me and my dead sightless eyes and I _can't see her._ My heart wants to rip itself out. The darkness behind my eyes is filled with pictures – a little blonde girl, timid, hiding behind a door frame; a lonely young woman, beautiful and neglected; the look on her face, innocent and trusting, as she bared her back to me and the sad, sad broken look when she asked me to burn it; and her stern face, ordering me to do my paperwork; and her soft, kind face when I turned to see her standing behind me in the graveyard; and her hair, and her mouth, and those big eyes that look right into me. Never again, I thought, never again will I _see _her, and my heart sinks to the bottom of the dark pit I live in now.

"Oh, Colonel," she repeats, and I feel her hand on my face, cool and comforting. My hands of their own will seek her out, finding her knees close to mine, and when they feel the warmth of her – wan though it is from her injuries – it suddenly feels as if the world isn't slipping away.

I feel her arms around my neck, drawing me towards her. "Oh, Roy." She breathes and I can feel the tears she is trying to hide from me in her shaky exhalation. My arms wrap around her and pull her close, though I am careful not to pull too hard. She's still wounded.

"Don't cry," I say. "Shh. It's all right." My lips find the side of her face and I can taste her iron blood and her salt tears. She huffs out a breath, shaky and stern. She pulls away, just far enough to see my face. She smoothes back my hair, dries my face of the tears I hadn't even realized I'd cried, and touches my closed eyes with her cool fingers.

"It will be," she says softly. "It _will _be all right."

And surrounded by her, by her smell and by her quiet voice, by the warmth of her body and the taste of her skin on my lips, I begin to feel like myself again. I can feel my life coming back because I'm alive and she's alive and we are _here, _together.

I am lucky. I am so, so lucky.


	31. 018 I don't want to realize

Disclaimer: Do not own. Wish I did.

A/N: This was a quick one.

18. I don't want to Realize

_No, no, no, it couldn't be. _Riza could feel the familiar tingling of adrenaline in her limbs as she pressed a hand to her abdomen as if to deny the meaning of the words that had just fallen on her with the weight of mountains.

"Are you sure, doctor?" asked Roy's voice from somewhere far away.

It couldn't be. It was impossible. Riza felt her whole world spinning out of orbit and into unknown darkness and fear. She couldn't move, but merely stared up at the doctor, willing him to take back his terrifying diagnosis.

"Absolutely, Mr Mustang," he said cheerily, and smiled down at her. "Your wife is now three weeks pregnant."

"That's wonderful!" Roy cried, and Riza felt his arms thrown about her and his lips landing on her cheeks and mouth. She brought up her hands, as if in defense, and pushed him back just far enough so that she could see his face.

"It can't be," she whispered, and Roy's expression immediately changed from excitement to concern.

"What's the matter?"

"I can't," she breathed. "I _can't _be a mother."

The worry melted out of his eyes and they were left full of nothing but affection. "Sure you can. You'll be a great mom. You've taken care of me for this long, there's no way a baby could be a bigger challenge than that."

At that, she smiled. He always had a way of making her feel like she could do anything. "You're probably right. Though it is your child, so it'll probably give us no end of trouble."

He laughed. "I'm sure we're up to it." He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and squeezed her shoulders. She ran a calmer hand over her belly and wondered what the baby would look like.


	32. 076 Watching Over You

**Disclaimer: Fff, as if I need to say it? Fullmetal owns **_**me.**_

**I am not dead! Just slow. I'm trying to get back to this because I am still determined to do all 100! It might help it I didn't let things get all out of hand by writing 1500 word chapters . . . **

**076. Watching over You**

She was quiet. She was so quiet, he wanted to be ill in the silence.

She was shaking, he could see that much. He couldn't see her face – which was probably for the best because he was unsure at this moment if he could ever look her in the eyes again, and the look on her face right now would probably haunt him forever – but he could see her white-knuckled hands trembling where they clutched the flimsy standard issue blanket on the cot where she lay. Her marred back – marred by him, marred by her father for him – lay bare, exposed to the cold air of the desert night with angry red marks burned into the pale skin, muddling the black lines delicately, perfectly, cruelly drawn there.

He pulled off his gloves and the urge to vomit abruptly returned to him. He had burned her with his own hands. That solemn, quiet girl who had looked so small, so tired, and still so beautiful even on the day of her father's funeral; the girl who, on that same day, he had sworn to himself to protect, even if he could protect no one else; the girl who had given him her father's knowledge so that he could control fire, he had burned her. It didn't matter if she had asked him to do it. She wouldn't have had to ask if it hadn't been for him. And, even though she had asked him to burn it all away, to purge it from her body, he could only bring himself to burn away the most vital bits of text and a small part of the detailed array. The majority of it still lay sprawled across her pale skin like ink on parchment, undamaged. But, like the coward that he was, he couldn't bring himself to cause any more damage to come to that innocent skin.

He had long ago gone beyond wondering how her father could have done this to her. He could think of no explanation good enough to justify his teacher taking a needle and tattooing his own daughter, this quiet, strong, beautiful, smart, precious girl. He had resigned himself to the fact that he would never understand why Master Hawkeye had felt the need to go so far. But now he looked at his own hands and the angry, painful red marks, the melted flesh on her back that had brought him – and Riza – full circle. Now he had made his own marks on the canvas of her body to erase those his teacher had left for him.

He almost laughed aloud at that, the disgusted sound choking itself voicelessly in his throat. As if Riza was a note stuck to the refrigerator or tacked to a door. As if she was nothing more than paper, journals, research, and not a living, breathing woman struggling to unearth something of herself from the wreckage of the knowledge passed back and forth between her father and Roy.

Thinking of what she must have gone through made him ache. He had seen the way her father had looked at her, had treated her. She might as well have been part of the furniture for all he had cared. And it made him sick with anger to think that the man that he had respected had probably approached his affection-starved daughter and made her feel like she was important to him for the first time in her life to get her to agree to what he did to her. Wondering whether he had been in the house at the time had plagued his mind from the moment she had first shown him the tattoo. Had she been deathly quiet through the pain then, as now? Had he just not heard her as her own father had chipped away at her individuality and humanity with ink and made her into something that could be _of use to him? _The thought disgusted him almost as much as the deed itself.

She finally moved, drawing her arms in and holding the blanket to her chest as she began to sit up.

"Don't, Riza," he said softly, almost laying a hand on her shoulder and drawing it back at the last second. "Rest. Please just rest."

"I'm fine," she said, her quiet voice strong as ever. Even when it was broken it was strong, like her. She didn't even hiss in pain as she pulled herself to a sitting position, though Roy knew it must have hurt terribly. Her back was still to him. The only sign that she felt any pain was her slightly labored breathing.

"Wait, stay there a minute," he said, and she held still. She didn't glance over her pale shoulder at him as he moved across his tent and tore through his duffle, finally uncovering the small jar he was searching for. He moved back toward her and pulled a camp chair over beside the bed.

"It's ointment for . . . for the burns," he said by way of explanation as he unscrewed the jar's lid. His fingers, bare of the gloves, dipped into it but hesitated inches from her skin. "This should make it feel a little better." He was hoping the statement would apply to the both of them, though he knew he hardly deserved any abatement in suffering. Gently he spread it across the cauterized wound on the top left of the array. She shivered. He couldn't think of anything else in the world that he could do to make this better. He felt responsible for this, for her. If wishing could turn back time he would have made himself fifteen again and grabbed her by her thin little hand and run away from that house with her, alchemy and her father both be damned. Even telling her that he loved her would be a pale offering in the face of everything she was facing – had already faced – with so much strength and determination. What did she need a confession of love from him for? He wouldn't be surprised if she never wanted to see him again.

"Thank you," she said softly as he finished applying the ointment. And he felt he would shatter. How could she thank him after all he had done to her?

"Don't," he said, and began to turn his back on her now, but she turned quicker than he had imagined she could and put her hand over his, stilling him.

"Thank you, Roy," she repeated, and the sound of his name, his first name on her lips gave him shivers he had no right to have. But her eyes, those eyes that no longer belonged to the little girl who had followed him on expeditions into the rambling woods behind the old house to find some root or bark or fungus his teacher had ordered him to locate, no longer the dream-filled eyes of the young woman who glanced down at the ground beside her father's grave so full of hope it made his heart want to burst, met his and the complete, unabashed honesty in them stopped him again. How had she managed to keep such a pure heart in this desert hell with that history drawn in heavy lines across her spine?

She gave a halfhearted smile, though she knew he would see through it. Her face was strained, and she couldn't hide her pain from him as she reached for her shirt and made a move to stand so that she could turn her back to him again and pull it on. This time, he stopped her.

"Riza, sit back down. Sleep here tonight. You can have the cot. It'll be better for your wounds if you don't try to smother them, at least tonight. Sit."

She looked at him, assessing him with those quick brown eyes. "I couldn't."

"Don't give me that," he said, though his scolding tone was soft and good-natured, recalling days long gone when they would sit in the kitchen on hot afternoons and argue about what to have for dinner. "I insist. Lie down."

She hesitated for a moment, met his eyes, and then crawled back onto the cot, her back still exposed. She kicked off her boots and put her cheek down on the flat pillow. He grabbed another blanket and draped it over her, being careful not to touch the rough material to her new wounds.

"I'll treat the burns again in the morning," he said, and sat heavily in the chair beside the bed.

She nodded once and remained quiet. It was only a few minutes before she fell asleep. Roy leaned back in his chair and wondered if the same fate that had granted her the great misfortune of crossing paths with him had been the one to allow him, betraying, abominable creature that he was, this quiet moment of simplistic happiness as he watched over her and, despite everything, she smiled in her sleep.


End file.
